


The Avatar and the White Dragon: Book One, Guidance

by BraveGirl_13



Series: The Avatar and the White Dragon [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 11:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 28,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17000637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BraveGirl_13/pseuds/BraveGirl_13
Summary: 10 years after Team Avatar's fight against Kuvira over Republic City, a new threat begins to make it's presence known. At the center of it all stands a 16 year old firebender. In an effort to fill in the blanks of her past, our story begins. But sometimes the truth isn't all it cuts out to be.





	1. An Orphan

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys. I recently decided to upload this story to my FF and Wattpad account, and I figured putting it on here wouldn't be such a bad idea either. I hope you all enjoy this story as much as I am enjoying writing it. I stuck to the main story line of the OG series, so everything that happened in the series happened in this story. Including Korra and Asami getting married (I know, I had to skip over that part for the story, but I do promise that we will be seeing some of that Korrasami magic in here!) The story is pretty much just something I came up with on a whim one evening and as I began writing it down, it all just sort of flowed out. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this work. Let me know what you all think!

_“You must never give in to despair. Allow yourself to slip down that road, and you surrender to your lowest instincts. In the darkest times, hope is something you give yourself. That is the meaning of inner strength.” -Iroh (Avatar: The Last Airbender)_

**_Book One: Guidance_ **

**_Chapter One_ **

**_(six years after the finale of The Legend of Korra)_ **

****

Strong is not a word Rai would use to describe herself. If anything, dark is a word that the young firebender would use to describe anything that pertained to her life. Not when said firebender watches a group of children run along the confines of the orphanage, their laughter and yelling reaching across the yard while the always quiet and cold-natured Rai repeatedly formed and extinguished a small flicker of flame on her fingertips. The workers they all had attempted to persuade the girl to join in on her fellow orphan’s fun, but the girl always declined, opting to stand far off and observe within the safety of her mind. Even at twelve, the firebender understood that she was _different_ from the other children here. They were exactly just that. Children, who all enjoyed running around and playing games, while Rai was content with the always present fire that ran through her veins, content with tinkering with whatever she could sneak from the offices in the main hall or creating her own with the scraps of metal and wiring she often stole from the maintenance workers. Yes, Rai was different. She knew that, the other children knew that, the workers knew that. And she wanted nothing else.

“Hey! Fireball!”

Had Rai not been paying apt attention to the group of children she shared a home with, she wouldn’t have known if was her they were indeed talking to. Which is why the flames that had been dancing across her fingers suddenly vanished, her head cocking to the side as the only other firebending, and relatively new transfer from the other side of the city, orphan strode up to the younger girl, two others flocking either side of him. “ _Fireball_? Really? That’s all your minuscule brain could come up with? I think all the hot air you have inside of you has steamed your brain past hope of recovery.”

By the time the three, Lee and his “gang” (as they had started calling themselves), could comprehend that Rai had responded to his taunt, the other children in the yard had taken notice of the four, their games and laughter long forgotten as they all stopped to watch the confrontation, some with interest while the others watched with fearful expressions. 

“Did you just insult me, Fireball?”

“Well, I wasn’t complimenting you.”

Lee took the last few final steps, towering over the young girl by an easy foot or two, his sneer attempting to look intimidating. “You think you’re so mysterious, always staying away from everyone else. Doing weird tricks with your bending and acting like you’re better than anyone else here. News flash, you’re an orphan like the rest of us. You weren’t good enough for your parents to keep you, so why would you be any better than us?”

A collective gasp from heard from a few of the other children, all of them having been here longer than the thirteen-year-old, and knowing that Rai couldn’t be pushed far enough to get a rise out of, unless someone reminded her exactly _what_ she was. An orphan.

Before any other sound of surprise could be uttered, Rai’s eyes darkened, their usual hardness increasing tenfold as she glared up at the older boy, and the air surrounding the four began to crackle with heat. “Back off, Lee.”

“Or what? You’re going to make me? I could totally take you with one hand tied-.”

The end of the boy’s sentence rushed out as he realized he was no longer looking at the girl, but instead the mid-afternoon sky, the fabric on his shoulder singed and smoking as he blinked rapidly, trying to remember what exactly had just happened. He’d heard rumors of the young girl being advanced with firebending, but he didn’t think she was good enough to knock him backwards before he could realize what was happening.

Scurrying to his feet, the boy quickly patted at the smoking fabric of his shirt as she growled in the direction of the other firebender, the hand that she had knocked him backwards with producing a flame that seemed to cover it whole resting by her side. “Enough! Walk away with whatever pride you have left.”

Seeing that the boy was, indeed, not going to back down, Rai readied herself, and as the boy lunged forward, throwing a pathetic wave of fire in her direction, she easily used the momentum and the brick wall behind her to propel herself up and over the boy, landing gracefully on her feet. Behind her, the older firebender eyes widened as he collided with the wall, sliding down the bricks until his knees hit the soft ground beneath him.

With one glance over her shoulder, Rai raised an eyebrow, turning her attention to the two boys who made up Lee’s “gang,” the scowl on her face leaving no room for argument. “Anyone else want to join him?”

When no one spoke up, the girl leveled herself out of the defensive stance, watching and waiting until the two other boys backed away from her, the fear evident in their eyes. Knowing that she had, once again, proved why she should be left alone, Rai turned on her heel, making her way towards the chain-link fence on the south side of the orphanage, disappearing from the view of the spectators inside the rows of tall bushes meant to cover the small portion of the fence that had been broken, a hole that Rai had used many times to sneak out of the orphanage and roam freely around the city.

Letting her feet carry her, away from the orphanage and the sounds that resumed inside, the young girl let out a breath, feeling the weight of the larger boy’s words settling into her mind and weighing her down like an anchor. Surely after twelve years, she shouldn’t be allowing the mere mention of her abandonment cause her to react so violently. Twelve years was not enough time to move on, though. Instead, she’d had twelve years to fuel the anger and sadness inside of her to the point that any and all hope of happiness had been silenced indefinitely.

Usually, Rai found herself standing in the midst of the park dedicated to the most recent Avatar, eyes roaming over the people in attendance and staring up at the statue of the Avatar their president had erected before the fight against the rogue Earth kingdom natives all those years ago. The statue was one of the few things still standing after the fight, proud and a beacon of hope for all those who felt lost in the mortal world. All except Rai, who spent a thousand or more minutes wondering how much energy it would take to blow the statue into pieces and watch it crumble before her. All the statue stood for: what the Avatar stood for, had not included the young orphan. She had been told her parents had abandoned her long before the Avatar first came to Republic City, while she had been “training” and was left to fend for herself in the streets until one of Beifong’s police puppets had captured her and given her over to the local orphanage.

She remembers being excited when she first heard of the Avatar being in the city, stupidly thinking that she was going to help the orphans, like herself. Instead, she watched as the Avatar only brought evil and disaster to the city. She had long ago stopped hoping the Avatar could save her, and began to realize that she was truly alone in this world. Over the years, Rai had grown fond of the feeling. It gave her something to fill her mind with, when it would otherwise want to fill with nonsense of self-pity and hope.

Now, though, instead of heading in the direction of the park and the statue she so loathed, Rai found herself watching as the great Republic City University came into view. Inside, held some of the greatest minds that had ever graced their world. It was a place the young firebender had imagined herself attending someday, back when hope was still something she believed in. Now, all she could was climb one of the trees that bordered the small pond outside the University’s front entrance, relaxing herself against the trunk and observing the people that entered and left through the doors of the great hall, the sun setting in the distance.

Sooner than Rai would have liked, the sun finally set, the reds and oranges that once danced over the buildings around her and the water below her now all cast in darkness. The University’s entrance now scarcely held any kind of traffic, the last person leaving over an hour ago, and yet, Rai couldn’t bring herself to climb down just yet. There was something about the old building, now only visible in the moon’s light, that seemed to draw the girl to it. Almost as if she knew she should be here. For what, the young firebender couldn’t pinpoint, but she would not pass up the opportunity to have some kind of meaning in her life. At least, not yet. While she may not ever have the chance to attend, she could at least bask in it’s glory now.

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

Rai had not been expecting the voice, nor had seen been expecting anyone to notice her hidden in behind the leaves of the tree she had taken refuge in. Yet, leaning against the trunk of the tree was a man, half his face hidden from Rai’s sight with the way the moonlight left it in shadow. What little she could see of his face, she realized he couldn’t be older than twenty, possibly a few years older than that, and she didn’t recognize him from her many quiet trips into the town. Or from the people she _knew_ attended or worked at the University. And had the man not glanced over and up at her, she would have thought he had simply misspoke or had been talking himself. But no, the question had been directed at her.

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to hurt you. Or take you back to the orphanage.”

The young firebender’s eyebrows shot upward in silent question at the man’s knowledge of who she was. Had he been a passing patron on the street that stopped to watch her take down the large orphan boy back in the orphanage lot? Did he see her climb under the broken portion of the fence and follow her here to the University? If so, had he really been watching her for as long as she had been here?

“You and I are much alike, Rai. I’ve been watching you for most of your life. I’ve seen your impressive skills with your firebending as you’ve gotten older, without training, might I add. I’ve also noticed you’re quite handy with a screwdriver and some wires. It shouldn’t have surprised me, really.”

Kwan watched with slight amusement as the young firebender almost fell forward, and off the branch she was sitting on, knowing that he had been keeping an eye on her. Perhaps persuading the girl was going to be easier than he thought. The questioning look in the girl’s jade-green eyes was enough confirmation for him. “I understand all of this may come to a surprise to you, but have you never really been sat down and informed on your parents’ apposed death? No? Because it was all a lie. So, how about you come down from that tree, and I’ll take you back with me to meet some friends of mine and we can talk more there?”

“Why should I? I don’t even know you, and you just admitted to have been watching me. All those things are just screaming for me not to trust you.”

Shaking his head, Kwan pushed himself off the tree, turning his back to the University to look up at the young girl in the tree. “Because you are my ace, Rai. When I first took notice of you, I thought that I could use a bender like yourself to help aid my plans. I thought that now, since you’re older, we could strike a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“An easy one. You help me with my…work, and I will do everything in my power to help you find your parents.”

A few moments of silence passed as the duo stared at each other, neither one of them wanting to break eye-contact, one out of fear of losing a vital piece of his mission, and the other waiting for whatever dream she was in to end. Eventually, Rai pushed herself off the tree branch, dropping down to her feet in front of the man. “What exactly are you playing at?”

“I’m not quite sure I understand the question.”

“You’re going to help me find information about my parents? Information that you say was withheld from me and the public? Obviously, I’m not expecting that to come free. What are you playing at? And what part do I play in all of this?”

Kwan smiled, bending down on his knee to be face-to-face with the firebender. “I’m the leader of a group of people with similar stories like yours. You’ve always been a sort of…wild card for me, Rai. I’ve been waiting until I thought you were ready to hear the truth about who you are and what your role in this is. Now is that time. I can train you. Not just in bending, but to become someone meant to help revenge exactly what we are. The lost and the forgotten. Come with me, and you’ll know everything. I’ll teach you everything. Come with me, and you’ll never have to see the inside of an orphanage again.”

“I don’t know…how can I be so sure to trust you?”

Kwan stood up off his knee, dusting the bit of dirt off. “What other choice do you have? It’s either trust me, or go back there. But it will ultimately be your choice, Rai. I can’t force you to be a part of this. You have to come on your own accord and be willing to be a part of this. Something tells me that you won’t refuse it, though.”

Rai watched the man for a few seconds, searching his face for any sign of dishonesty. But she found none, and really, what did she have to lose? Another potential face-off with the other orphans? A mundane job working in a factory whenever she was old enough to be forced out of the system? “Alright. I will go with you, but once we get there, if I find any kind of shady practice going on, I’ll be gone before you can blink. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am. Now, do we have a deal?”

Rai’s eyes danced between the man’s hand and his face, her thoughts swirling freely at the forefront of her brain. Something, she wasn’t sure what, but something was telling her she would regret taking the man’s offer. But there was a much larger part of her, her inner child, the child that she _still_ was that simply wanted as many answers as she could get. It was that larger part that eventually swayed the young firebender’s mind as she gripped the man’s hand in reproach. “We have a deal.”

* * *

 

  ** _Four years later_**

Two things. There are two things that, so far, annoy Rai more than she cares to admit. One is the way many of these so called “prodigies” that sauntered through and out of the University’s entrance, acting as though they deserved everything the world could offer them. Secondly, it was the sound of that horrid piece of metal as one of the other R.F. members filed away at her nails with it beneath her. Both of these things were, currently, the reason for the scowl on Rai’s face as she sat perched on a branch in what she now dubbed as her tree.

After what seemed like an eternity to Rai, the sound of nail filing stopped, and the girl who had been doing the filing, Asha, stabbed the object into the trunk of the tree with an exasperated sigh. “Who exactly are we looking for, again? Was anyone here given a name? Or possibly a description?”

“Kwan said just to watch and we’d know who we were looking for.”

Thankfully Kayo managed to answer the girl’s questions. Again. They’d been sitting here under this tree, or in Rai’s case _in_ it, waiting and watching every person who entered or left the University. Kwan had been scarce with the details of their scouting mission, and why he bothered to send four for a such a simple task confused the girl. And what, or should Kayo say _who_ , they were looking for she also failed to understand the importance of.

Hayate, who had been sitting up against the trunk of the tree and fiddling with carving designs into a stick with this favorite knife, spoke up, never looking up from his handiwork. “There are hundreds of people who come and go from this place, how can Kwan expect us to simply pick out a person?”

While the three R.F. members began to argue about the importance of details within a mission, Rai simply ignored them as best as she could, her eyes scanning the length of the building until they settled on the far East Wing, where loud noises of the tinkering of tools and handsaws and the distinct smell of soldering irons were always present. And then something clicked inside of Rai’s mind, and much like the night she met Kwan, she gracefully jumped out of the tree, landing on her feet without so much as noise before she took off towards the University, leaving the rest of her team mates confused by the girl’s sudden movements.

“Rai, where are you going?”

The firebender barely glanced over her shoulder, her jade green eyes halfway hidden behind a veil of black hair streaked with white. “I’m getting a closer look.”

Asha, Hayate and Kayo all glanced at each other before the latter took off after the girl, telling the other two to stay there so as not to draw too much attention to whatever Rai was planning. Not that anything she would do would surprise Kayo. They’d been scouting together since their first training exercise and she’d seen the young firebender do many things the others wouldn’t dare. But that’s what made her so amusing to work with. It was always a surprise with her. The firebender kept her on her toes.

“Rai, do you know who Kwan sent us here to observe?”

The black-haired girl nodded, walking past the University’s entrance and around towards the east side, disappearing around the corner of the building and further confusing her companion when she stopped below a metal trellis climbing up towards the glass dome. Said glass dome that held most of the offices shared by the science and engineering department. “What are you doing?”

Rai let out a sigh, turning to look at Kayo with a raised eyebrow. “Stay here and keep watch. I don’t think anyone will come this way, but should they, run. I’ll signal when it’s clear for you to follow.”

“Follow? What are you-?” The question quickly died on Kayo’s lips as she watched the firebender hoist herself up onto the trellis, easily pulling herself upwards until she could gain better footing to continue her ascent. Kayo briefly wondered where Rai had managed to become such an adept climber, but thinking back to all those times she would find the girl sitting in a tree or the edge of a building, she shut down those thoughts. _She must be part lemur or something_. The thought of her friend with a striped tail and huge ears forced a smile to Kayo’s face as she watched the younger girl finally reach the top, peering through the glass dome before glancing back down at her.

With a one, short wave, Rai pushed on the edge of a pane of glass, climbing through with so little effort that Kayo frowned. _Wait? We’re going inside? Why the hell couldn’t we just use the front doors then?_ Eventually, Rai’s head popped back out of the open window, her hand motioning for Kayo to start climbing, and the firebender watched as her team mate made the same trek she did. Although much slower. When she was finally within reach, Rai stuck her hand out, bracing herself with the other as Kayo grabbed her hand and she pulled the other girl up and through the window.

“What are we doing? Aren’t these the offices of the professors?”

Rai nodded, glancing around them and taking in her bearings. Thankfully the dome was settled underneath a circular ledge that provided room for the storage of boxes and piles of paperwork, which is where Kayo and her had ducked behind upon entering through the window. Peeking around the edge of the box she was hidden behind, Rai’s eyes scanned the hallway for any sign of movement and when she deemed that everything was quiet enough for their next move, she made quick work of eyeing the two security cameras at either end of the hall where they were. Reaching behind her head, she pulled up the hood of her jacket, glancing over her shoulder and waiting until Kayo had done the same before standing up and peering over the edge of the ledge. They weren’t that high, thankfully, and after taking a deep breath she jumped off, landing on the tiled floor while keeping her head down, mindful of the angle of the cameras. One wrong move and they’d have her face on tape. Kwan would kill her.

Turning halfway, and while still keeping her face hidden, she motioned for her companion to come, holding out her hands when Kayo stalled on the edge of the ledge. The girl was never one for heights, and Rai suddenly thought back to the time she’d been confronted by the older girl following a mission that left most of them with some injury or another.  

_She’d been sitting down on the edge of building they’d been occupying, one foot dangling over the edge while her elbow rested atop the other, her fingers toying with the edges of the bandage around her left hand when she heard the sound of the rooftop door opening behind her. She figured it would only be sooner, rather than later that Kayo would come looking for her. She hadn’t known the girl long, considering she’d been the last to join their “family” over a year ago, but ever since being introduced to the girl, she’d always treated her differently. She’d told Rai she cared about her. Whenever Rai wouldn’t speak what little she did, Kayo had always asked her if she was okay. Granted, Rai always felt like she wasn’t okay, but she’d never tell the older girl that. She’d just worry that much more over her._

_“Is your hand okay?”_

_Shrugging a shoulder, the younger girl kept her eyes trained towards the lit up buildings of the city, but stopped fidgeting with her injured hand. “It’ll heal.”_

_Out of the corner of her eye, Rai watched Kayo stand a few feet off from her, her eyes warily looking over the edge of the roof before the older girl frowned. “Kwan is looking into how they could have known we were coming. He thinks there’s one of us on the inside paying out information.”_

_Rai simply shrugged again, letting her eyes close as a cool breeze lifted her hair around her. It was peaceful and quiet, and although her hand had been hurting like a bitch for the better part of an hour, she felt calm. At least until she felt the presence of the girl next to her, settling into place and automatically reaching out to steady herself by grabbing onto the firebender’s knee, the grip on it tightening as the older girl eventually settled down. “You’re afraid of heights, aren’t you?”_

_Without opening her eyes, Rai knew the other girl was now staring at her, but Kayo had failed to move from her position on the edge next to her, nor had she removed her hand from Rai’s knee. “I just don’t like being up so high. It’s odd, how much you like to be in places like this. Always on the edge of something. The roof, a tree, whatever you can find.”_

_“I’ve found that people don’t bother you as much up here. A fear of heights usually keeps them away.”_

_“Yeah, well, too bad. I’m here to bother you, and you’re just gonna have to deal with it.”_

_Smiling slightly, the firebender let her propped up leg drop down to hang by the other, the action forcing a squeak of fear from the older girl, which had Rai opening her eyes and reaching out to place her uninjured hand on the girl’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I won’t let you fall.”_

_Kayo’s hand covered her own, and had Rai’s mind not been so preoccupied with the feeling of failure that always come from turning up with nothing about her past after completing a mission, she would have noted the warmth that spread along her arm upon the contact of their skin. “Promise?”_

_The firebender nodded, pulling her hand away from the older girl, but didn’t return her gaze to the city lit up, instead focusing her eyes on the girl next to her, who had taken up upon herself to watch the lights and attempt to remain calm at being so high up. “I promise.”_

 

Pulling herself out of her memories, Rai glanced up at her companion, holding both hands out. The ledge wasn’t _that_ high up, and she lacked a few inches from being able to grab it with her bare hands, but she understood the girl’s fear of any kind of height and so she smiled softly when Kayo’s slightly-panicked eyes met hers. “I won’t let you fall. I promise.”

Hearing those same words spoken to her renewed the courage in the older girl, and as she held her breath, Kayo willed herself to sit on the edge of the ledge, reaching forward to grab Rai’s hands before jumping off, landing a few inches in front of the shorter girl. “Thanks.”

The young firebender only nodded, letting go of the girl’s hands before taking a step back and walking towards one end of the hallway, her eyes darting up towards the names on each office door before she stopped in front of one. Kayo followed behind her, keeping her ears and eyes trained to look for any kind of noise or movement, ready to bolt should they need to. “Rai, what are we doing inside the offices?”

“Scouting.”

Kayo let out a huff at the one word response she got from the girl. There had been few times since meeting the girl three years ago that she spoke more than a few sentences, and why she sometimes appreciated having a quiet partner for missions and scouting and even in their shared room back at home, Kayo hated that the girl was practically leaving her out of the loop as to why they had just committed a B&E. Instead of push the girl further, Kayo simply kept her eyes and ears trained to either end of the hallway as Rai made quick work of the lock on whoever’s office door they had stopped at. Upon hearing the locking mechanism click, Rai silently slid into the office, reaching out to grab Kayo’s hand and pull her inside just as the door on the right end of the hallway opened. Kayo let out a light sigh at almost being caught. Had Rai not managed to open the door and pull her and herself in, she would have been forced to come up with some convoluted lie as to what they were doing inside the office quarters of the University. And Kayo did not want to do that. Kwan was bound to reprimand them for breaking into a professor’s office anyway, and getting caught would only add to their punishment. Kayo and Rai had been caught once before, for something much less greater than this, but Kwan had seen it as getting caught all the same. And they’d endured his punishment. Silently on Rai’s part, but Kayo did not have the luxury to force herself to be quiet during _that_.

The older girl rolled her shoulders, still, after a year, she could still feel the sting of the whip against her bare back. She shuddered at the thought and forced herself to focus on what they were doing, and as Kayo glanced around the room, she noticed the firebender sitting at the desk centered in front of the window. “Who’s office is this, Rai?”

“Asami Sato’s.”

Kayo’s eyes widened as she watched the younger girl pilfer through the piles of paperwork and folders on top of and inside the desk, her next words coming out somewhat breathless. “You seriously broke us into the office of the CEO of Future Industries and the Avatar’s _wife_? Are you crazy?!”

Rai glanced up from her work, raising an eyebrow at the older girl. “Don’t sound too eager there, Kayo. Kwan mentioned something about a prototype Future Industries has been working on. Something that had to do with the Spirit World portal that the Avatar opened a few years ago. I figured that’s why he sent us here.”

“Well can you just find the file and let’s _go_?”

“Are you kidding me? I’m sitting at the desk of one of the greatest minds in Republic City. Maybe even the world. I’m going to relish this feeling for a minute or two.”

Kayo groaned, watching as Rai pilfered through more stacks of folders, placing a few in a sperate file in her lap. After a few minutes of her staring the younger girl down, Rai let out a sigh, looking up from her work. “Stop it, go stand watch.”

Rai waited until the girl had positioned herself by the office door before going back to her search. She’d come across folders that the CEO had been using as lesson plans for the engineering class she’d been teaching here at the University, account statements for Future Industries and even old newspaper clippings of the Avatar’s doings from around the world. Just when Rai thought that the CEO didn’t have any files about the goings on at her company, Rai pulled out the bottom drawer of the desk, pulling out the stack of files and landing on a whole series of work the CEO had been doing.

There were thousands of ideas here, and Rai caught herself wishing that she’d had the chance to fulfill her wishes of becoming a student here, just to see what kind of genius was going on behind the hallowed walls of this place. Finally, Rai stumbled across the file she’d been looking for and after quickly adding that to the pile she’d collected on her lap, she moved to place the other files back into their original positions when one lone file caught her attention. It seemed to been stuffed under the rest of the other files, almost as if it’d been an after thought to whoever had put it there.

Reaching out for it, and replacing the other files back into the drawer, Rai made quick work of flipping the old and tattered file open. Inside were newspaper clippings much like the ones from earlier that held the Avatar’s accomplishments, only these were clippings from long ago. Dated back to before Rai had even existed. They consisted of the CEO’s family, when Future Industries had first ben taken over following Hiroshi Sato’s arrest for conspiring with the Equalists. There was even one of when the CEO’s mother had been brutally murdered by a local gang, but what caught Rai’s attention the most was a torn and opened envelope from the Republic City’s department of Health, scribbled on the front a single date that had the young firebender frowning in confusion as she pulled out the contents of the envelope, her confusion only growing upon scanning over the certificate in her hand. Why did the CEO of Future Industries, wife to the Avatar, have a death certificate with her birth date on it?

“Did you find whatever you were looking for?”

Nodding, the younger girl placed the certificate back inside the file before sliding it and the other files she’d collected into her bag, moving around the edge of the desk and towards her team mate. Without uttering a word, the firebender walked towards her companion, clicking the lock to the office door shut before moving towards the window. Kayo followed the younger girl, letting out a groan at realizing they were going to have to climb again, and stared at her friend when she noticed the girl pausing in her movements halfway out the window.

“What? Why are you stopping?”

“Do you trust me?”

Rai watched as the other girl frowned, nodding her head. “Of course.”

“Close your eyes. Don’t open them until I tell you to.”

Kayo’s breath caught in her throat upon feeling the girl’s arms around her waist, and before she ask the girl what exactly was fixing to happen, she squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her own arms around the shorter girl’s shoulders. After all, she found it better to just do and not ask so many questions when it came to Rai.

What Kayo hadn’t been expecting was the sudden rush of air around her, almost as if she was halfway through making a jump like earlier, off the edge of the ledge outside the offices. It wasn’t until she noticed her feet were no longer touching anything that she realized what Rai had done. She had jumped out of the office window, and was apparently using her bending to let them safely land on the ground, seeing as a few seconds later she was standing on her own on what she hoped was the ground.

“You can open them now.”

Tightening her arms slightly, she chanced peeking one eye open, catching sight of the grassy lawn they were standing in. Thankfully the CEO’s office was facing the other side of the building, where no one could have seen them jump.

“Did you seriously just jump out of that window with me?”

Rai shrug as best as she could with the taller girl’s arms still around her shoulders, wondering if was appropriate to have your friends arms around you for this long, or to have your own arms around said friend. “Yes.”

The taller girl let out a breathy laugh, finally pulling away from the firebender and running her hands through her hair before landing a light punch on the younger girl’s shoulder. Rai, for her part, barely even flinched at the contact, having been used to the older girl who was now glaring at her.

“You! Are! A! Sociopath!”

Each word was accented with another punch to Rai’s shoulder, until the firebender finally caught the girl’s wrists and held them by her side. “I would never let anything happen to you. And nothing did, so if you’re done hitting me now, can we please so grab Asha and Hayate and go home?”

With a huff, the taller girl yanked her hands out of Rai’s grip, turning on her heel and stomping off down the sidewalk. After a few seconds, Rai followed, catching up to the older girl before she’d made it around the side of the building. Upon seeing their two missing members, Rai let out a sigh, bypassing them completely and instead found herself making her way in the direction towards their home.

The walk was silent, any and all questions asked Asha and Hayate had been answered by Kayo. Rai was a few steps ahead of the others, and she was quite aware that the conversation had lulled over the past few minutes, so the girl took the opportunity to think about the information she’d gotten for Kwan. Amongst those file reports laid that death certificate. Why she took it, Rai couldn’t fathom. She hadn’t had the chance to read over it completely before Kayo had asked if she was done, and whether the girl led on to it or not, she hadn’t wanted to get caught breaking into the CEO’s office just as much as Kayo. But the date that had been written on the envelope, and was also dated on the document had questions reeling in Rai’s mind. It was her birthday, one of the few things Kwan had been able to find out a few months after she met him. That and her parents actually had been just another casualty to Republic City. It could just be a coincidence, it was just a date after all to other people, but the young firebender found it odd to find the death certificate in the CEO’s desk, where it was obviously not meant to be found.

Pushing all those thoughts aside, Rai stopped in front of the familiar alleyway, the sound of a brawl and the chanting of other members were barely able to be heard from the opening. If one hadn’t been so used to hearing them, it would have easily been overlooked by anyone, seeing as though the sound was coming from a bar.

 Asha and Hayate both continued on around her, mumbling their partings before they opened the side door to the pub. Rai watched them leave, vaguely aware of Kayo standing behind her.

“Are you okay?”

Nodding, the younger girl turned halfway, eyeing her companion and leaving Kayo to wonder what was really going through the girl’s head. “I apologize for scaring you earlier. I figured you wouldn’t like having to scale the trellis again and it seemed like the only other way out of the office. It was never my intention to frighten you.”

Kayo nodded, now understanding why the girl had stopped outside their home, and why she’d been quiet on the walk back. “It’s okay. I know that’s not what you were trying to do. I just…really hate heights.”

“I know.”

Opting to leave whatever awkwardness was bound to come along with the end of the conversation, Kayo wrapped an arm around Rai’s frame, pulling her into her side as they both continued down the alley and in through the pub’s side door. “Are you going to give Kwan those files before you call it a night?”

Rai nodded, letting the taller girl pull her past the counter that was already littered with drunk business men and through to the back. “I won’t be long.”

Once the duo had made it around the boxes of alcohol and whatever snacks Jax had ordered for that week, they stopped once they reached the torn and lone poster, Rai’s hand automatically coming up to knock on the hard surface twice. The wall then separated, moving back in on itself before sliding down into the foundation, revealing the neutral faces of the unlucky souls of the two Earth benders who’d been stuck with security detail. Once the two girls had walked across the threshold, neither registered the sound of the wall being placed back to its original position and instead focused on the sounds that were coming from the bottom of the staircase below them.

Shouts and cheers were being thrown up around them, and when the duo reached the bottom of the stairs they both understood why. Two of the newbies that Cam had recruited were piled on top of each other in the common room, a group of twelve or more members either cheering them on or shouting at the pair on the ground. Judging by the amount of blood on the concrete floor and all over the two, Rai could only guess they’d been at it for a few minutes now.

Out of the corner of her eye, Rai noticed Cam watching the two with an unamused look on his face. Leave it to him to not be bothered by his own recruits trying to kill themselves.

“Ah, you two are finally back. We were beginning to wonder if you’d done as Kwan asked. Please don’t tell me you came back empty handed.”

Rai pulled her attention away from the fight as Kayo’s arm dropped from around her, the firebender automatically frowning when the owner of the voice immediately wrapped his arms around Kayo, placing a not-so-soft kiss on the girl’s lips that had the receiver letting out a noise of protest. When Nakio eventually pulled away from what Rai thought was him trying to devour his girlfriend’s face, Rai raised an eyebrow in question before walking towards the group surrounding the two fighting boys. The crowd parted easily for her, and without much restraint. Given her nature and reputation, all the sounds of shouting and cheering halted. With little effort, the firebender grabbed each of them by their collars and hoisted them up, pushing each in opposite directions.

“Both of you, head to the sparring room and run twenty laps side-by-side. Now.”

The two recruits let out sounds of annoyance before following the firebender’s orders, the last few onlookers who had been watching the fight scrambled to continue whatever it was they had been doing before the two boys had started throwing punches.

With one last, unreadable look towards her friend, who was watching her with questioning eyes as Nakio whispered something in her ear, Rai slid through the doorway that led towards the dorm rooms and Kwan’s office, adding one last thing to her list of things she absolutely hated. Nakio. More specifically, the way he treated Kayo as if she was some kind of prize to claim instead of a human being.

Clearing herself of her thoughts, Rai bypassed her shared room with Kayo, wishing more than anything to just fall onto the bed and let her unconscious take over, but Rai knew she needed to get these files to Kwan. Slowing her pace, the firebender eventually stopped, backtracking to her dorm room and pulling out the folder that contained the death certificate. She made quick work of unlocking the door and stepping in, thanking the spirits that Kayo was still being occupied by her giant oaf of a boyfriend and easily slid the folder underneath her dresser, out of sight and protected until she could return.

Feeling a little lighter now that she was no longer carrying around the odd file, Rai eventually found herself standing outside of Kwan’s office. From the other side, the firebender could hear the man in a deep, one-sided conversation. Now doubt talking to one of his “connections.”

One, swift knock later, Rai was entering his office, pulling the files of the prototype and whatever else she had found out while closing the door behind her in a single movement. Kwan, who had been sitting behind his desk, raised an eyebrow when the firebender held out the stack of files from the other side of the metal table. Kwan took them hesitantly, flipping through the stack quickly before he finally eyed the firebender stood before him. “I assume you got a little hands-on today?”

“Not too much.”

“And were you seen?”

“To my knowledge, no. Strictly in and out.”

The boss nodded, leaning back in his chair as his fingers scratched at the stubble on his chin. “Good work. Now, I’m going to talk to some investors next week and I trust that you’ll keep an eye out on my office for me. Also, try and keep the new recruits in line. Light their asses on fire if you have to, just get it on camera if you do. I’d want to see it.”

Nodding, the firebender waited until she was dismissed before venturing back out into the hallway. She knew she should be heading down towards the mess hall, where Kayo and the rest of her team were probably waiting on her, but the curiosity that had been building inside of the sixteen-year-old was proving too much to bare. So, pushing away from Kwan’s office door, the firebender let herself carry her weight along the hall, doubling back until she was standing inside her shared dorm room, staring at the dresser that hid the file safely underneath it. Gathering up her courage, Rai retrieved the file, making herself comfortable on the bed before flipping the folder open and picking up the first few contents. The first few things had been what she’d seen back in the CEO’s office, newspaper clippings of the death of the CEO’s mother, her father’s arrest and even a few of the United Forces over the years. None of this added up to anything unusual, if not just an odd pile of old newspaper clippings until Rai reached the far back end of the pile. There she found an article about an accident that the CEO had apparently been a part of, something that had left the, what would have been sixteen-year-old version of the CEO, in semi-critical condition following an alleged hit and run, the perp remaining unknown and that Mr. Sato refused to comment on the matter, stating only that he wanted to see his daughter through her recovery and bring the people responsible for her accident into the light.

After that, all the file folder held was the death certificate, which didn’t give away that much information either. The only information being a date. The date that just so happened to be her birth date, which the firebender still thought was odd. None of it was clicking into place. Not the newspaper clippings, or the certificate.

Eventually, after what thought was the better part of a few hours spent rereading the certificate and newspaper clippings, the firebender let out a sigh. Whatever answer to the riddle she had found with this folder was obviously personal, and she had no business looking into it. If anything else, it had nothing to do with her and she was most likely better off to just toss the file into the garbage and forget she ever even took it from the CEO’s desk. So Rai didn’t understand what she was doing when she simply slid the file back under her dresser and climbed in bed, attempting to push away all the thoughts of whatever she had, coincidentally, stumbled across whatever skeleton in the CEO’s closet.


	2. Answers

**_The Avatar and the White Dragon: Book One, Guidance_ **

**_Chapter Two:_ **

****

The unmistakable sound of the door opening and closing is what pulled Rai’s attention away from the book she was reading, her eyes snapping up to see her roommate standing with her back to her, seemingly staring at the closed door of their room. Usually, Rai would think nothing much of her friend and roommate coming home so late in the morning, but the older girl had been MIA since the weekend following their excursion to the University. It was now three days later, and she hadn’t heard a word, not even a note, from the older girl, so Rai simply tossed the book she had been reading to the side before sliding off the bed and walking towards her roommate, who still hadn’t moved from when she first entered the room.

“Kayo?”

Even from her position a few feet behind the older girl, Rai could visibly see her shoulders tense, so the firebender kept her distance, the hand that she had held out to touch the other girl stalling before falling back to her side. “What’s wrong?”

It was a rarity for the firebender to show any kind of emotion, and Kayo could practically hear the worry dripping from the girl’s voice as she stood gripping the door handle to their shared room tightly, wishing that she could have avoided this all together. But she’d been gone for three days, and had already taken over Asha’s room to hide out for too long. Loosening her grip on the handle, and taking a deep breath, she turned to face her roommate, waiting for a reaction that she never could predict whenever it came to the firebender.

However, the reaction she received did in fact surprise Kayo, and she watched as the younger girl’s jade-green eyes turned a shade darker before she had closed the distance between the two of them, barely brushing by the older girl before slipping past into the hallway, the air in their room where Kayo still stood crackling with heat.

Without missing a beat, Kayo turned and followed after the girl, confused by where the girl was going and why seeing the bruise around her left eye and cheekbone had caused such an angry reaction in the girl. “Rai, wait!”

Rai didn’t bother stopping upon hearing her roommate’s voice, but instead kept her pace somewhat faster than normal as she rounded the corner of the common room. Sure enough, sitting with his back to the room at the make-shift bar Cam and Kwan had built, was the object of her search. The firebender was vaguely aware that her roommate had now caught up with her, and was attempting to reach the girl through whatever anger induced haze she’d been in since her eyes fell on the bruising on her friend’s face. But she ignored the girl, walking up behind Nakio and in one, shift movement, knocked over the glass of alcohol he had been consuming and slammed her hand into the back of the boy’s head, forcing his face to connect with the hard surface of the counter before Rai took out the stool he was sitting on, watching as the heap of mass fell to the floor with a loud grunt.

The string of curses, and the sound of the glass shattering pulled all the attention in the room towards the firebender as Nakio let out another groan, pushing himself off the floor with one hand while the other reached up to attempt and stop the blood that was now flowing freely down his chin. “What the hell is your problem?!”

Without a word, the firebender grabbed a handful of the boy’s hair, yanking as hard as she dared as she kneeled on the floor in front of him, forcing the boy to keep his attention on her. “You are a pathetic excuse of human life. Let this be your first and only warning. Not a hair on her head is to be touched by you again. Spirits help you should you forget this.”

Letting go of the boy’s head, Rai stood up, catching the gaze of her roommate from across the room. The older girl was simply staring with her mouth hanging open in shock, to which Rai just raised an eyebrow, walking towards the older girl and turning her around, giving her a gentle push in the direction that had come from. Kayo obliged, her mouth snapping shut as she let the firebender basically lead her back to their room. Once inside, the firebender sat her roommate down on her respective bed, hovering above her for a second before returning to the exact same spot she’d been occupying on her own bed before Kayo had entered.

“Why did you do that?”

The firebender shrugged, seemingly calm after what she’d just done, but Kayo could see the anger still residing in the girl’s eyes, could see the tension on the girl’s shoulders as she sat against the wall. “He deserved it.”

Kayo frowned, tearing her eyes away from her roommate and friend to stare down at her own hands. “How did you even figure it out?”

“Who else would have been stupid enough to hit you?”

Kayo knew the firebender had a point. After their conversation on the roof, she’d found herself a one-woman protection detail. If anyone so much had dared to lay a hand on the taller girl, they’d been knocked down by the firebender before anyone could blink. Her first sparring match had been the start of it. Cam had been teaching that day, which meant that the rules they usually had in place weren’t enforced, such as aiming punches and kicks below chin level, and the girl she’d been paired with had towered over her easily. As inexperienced as she was, Kayo liked to think she at least held her own for a little while against the older girl, but before long, she had been knocked down to her knees with a blow to the jaw. How Rai had managed to intercept so fast, she still didn’t know to this day, (the girl had been across the room silently observing for the entire match) but she had intervened before the older girl could even reposition herself on the mat. Kayo remembered that somewhere through the fog of the pain, thinking that she had never been more thankful for meeting the firebender, who had stood over her with flames in her eyes and in her hands, daring anyone, but mainly Cam, to say anything to her about what she’d just done, Kayo’s sparring partner lying unconscious on the mat off to their right. Since, no one has bothered any of Rai’s team members, because they’d seen first hand just exactly what a bad idea that would be.

Much like then, Kayo had seen the same rage reeling in the girl’s eyes tonight, and as she glanced back up at her roommate, who was staring off into the distance, she smiled despite the slight throb is caused the left side of her face and willed herself to keep the stinging in her eyes at bay. She’d told herself the night it happened, after Nakio had drunkenly wanted to move further into their relationship than she had and her face had paid the price of saying no, that she wouldn’t cry about it. And maybe it wasn’t the situation that was now the cause of the tears flowing down her cheeks, but simply the fact that for someone so cold and distant, she’d been lucky enough to break through some of the armor her roommate had piled on and gained access to something Kayo thought she’d never have. Someone who loved her.

Hearing a sniffle from the other side of the room pulled Rai from her thoughts, where she had also been thinking about her roommate’s first sparring match as well, although she was imagining Nakio as the one who was knocked unconscious, if not something more. She’d glanced over at her roommate, watching as the girl turned halfway in her bed, wiping at the tears that were streaming down her face. All the anger that Rai had felt disappeared upon seeing someone she cared about, which if she didn’t want to lie to herself any longer, was more than just friendship, so upset and in this type of situation.

The firebender stood from her bed, saving her thoughts on maiming the boy who’d bruised her roommate’s face for later as she silently slid onto the bed behind Kayo, wrapping her arms around the girl’s form.

 

Hours later, Rai found herself staring at the door of her room, her thoughts reeling from the past couple of days. She’d completely forgotten about the file that was still sitting under the dresser when she’d been wondering where her roommate had disappeared. And then she’d shown up early this morning with a bruised face, which prompted the firebender to send a message out to the boy to never make that mistake again. Things had quietened down since then, after Kayo’s breakdown, she’d thanked the firebender for always being there for her, and made her promise not to do anything else to the boy, which had made Rai roll her eyes but promise anyway. Although she fully intended to make the boy squirm whenever she could. What Kayo didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

The occupant of said thoughts and distractions was currently sleeping, her arm draped over her roommates stomach and her head resting on the shorter girl’s shoulder, cheek against the firebender’s collarbone. They’d stayed up longer after Kayo’s tears subsided and simply talked, about everything. Rai had been wanting to mention what she found in the file folder from the CEO’s office to her friend for a while now, but between the girl going through some obvious troubles, she’d have to keep waiting. And she fully intended to bring it up somewhere along the conversation the two had been sharing over the past few hours, but when she started to, she noticed her roommate had fallen asleep and decided to leave that conversation for later.

She was content with just watching her friend sleep, and listening to the even breathing that came with it, her own arms eventually coming up to wrap around the older girl sometime over the past few hours. Rai would have joined her in dreamland had she not been still somewhat fuming over what that bastard had done to her friend. So she sat where she was, her back against the wall on Kayo’s bed while her friend kept her warm by being so close. When she’d first moved here, and taken Kwan up on his deal, she would have laughed if someone told her four years later she’d be sitting here with someone she considered her best friend and a part of her family, for once not feeling alone.

Glancing over at the clock she knew Kayo kept on her bedside table, she noticed the time and remembered that she needed to check up on Kwan’s office in a few hours since he had left sometime yesterday, but was finding it hard to wake the girl in her arms.

“You may not say much, but you think too loudly.”

Rai tensed for a second, not expecting to hear her friend’s voice, but immediately relaxed afterwards. “Sorry.”

“You have to go, don’t you?”

Nodding, the firebender slackened her arms from around her friend, feeling her cheeks heat up slightly at having been caught acting like something other than the emotionless, cold rock people thought she was. Which, in a way, she was. “I just have to check on Kwan’s office.”

Kayo sat up off her friend, feeling tense from the way she’d been sleeping, wincing slightly when her cheek and eye shot a series of painful seconds. If anything, Kayo had to hand it to Nakio. He had a pretty mean left hook, but Rai’s was much better. “Okay. I have to go see Tuyen in the infirmary, see if he can do anything for my face.”

“Do you want me to go with you?”

Kayo knew that she probably couldn’t get Rai to leave her side for a few days. She wouldn’t be complaining about it, though. If she was honest, she was scared to even be without anyone she trusted while Nakio was running around. She’d managed to avoid him all weekend, but now that Rai had, publicly, defender her, the boy will be looking for her eventually. If she could keep that from happening for a little bit longer she would. “Please. We can stop by Kwan’s office on the way.”

With a nod, the firebender was off her roommates bed and standing over her, holding her hand out to the older girl. Kayo simply took the offered hand, letting her friend pull her out of their room and down the hall. One of the perks of being teamed up with Rai was that their room was close to Kwan’s and Cam’s offices, so neither had to worry about running into someone since the other members tended to steer clear of this part of the living quarters.

Kayo herself had never been inside their boss’ office, and when Rai had let go of her hand to venture inside and make sure everything was okay, her eyes scanned the room. There were posters of pro-bending teams all over the walls, and articles about some of the politicians of Republic City pinned to a board directly behind Kwan’s desk. She watched as Rai moved through the room as if she practically knew where everything was, and it she knew she basically did. The only other person who spent as much as Kwan did in here was the firebender. It wasn’t a secret that Kwan had a soft spot for the girl, why, no one understood, but never questioned it.

“Is where Kwan keeps all of the information he gathered about us when we joined?”

The firebender nodded, looking up from behind the desk to point at a row of filing cabinets that lined one wall, each marked with a specific letter. “They’re in alphabetical order.”

Walking towards the cabinets, Kayo raised an eyebrow, her eyes landing on the one she was sure housed her own information, gently pulling on the drawer until it popped open. There were hundreds of members of the R.F., all stationed around the city wherever Kwan had set up a settlement. Their home was the main branch, and as Kayo’s eyes raked over people she knew and didn’t know, she finally found her name, pulling the file folder out and flipping it open. On top of the pile of paper work was a simply photo, a photo that showed a young Kayo with her parents on either side, all three laughing in the direction of the camera.

The older girl quickly snapped the folder shut, placing it back into it’s rightful place before scanning over the other names. “Doesn’t it seem kind of unsafe to just leave all this information about each other out in the open like this?”

“The cabinets lock, but Kwan left them unlocked in case I’d need to look into someone while he was gone. And the only people who have access to them are him and Cam.”

Nodding, Kayo glanced from the rows of files to watch her friend read something on the piece of paper Kwan had left taped to the inside of his door, knowing the firebender would find it upon entering. “Have you ever read my file?”

The question had the firebender’s head snapping up, her eyes widening as if she was a two-year-old that had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. While the girl was usually hard to read at time, when caught off guard, she let that wall down and some emotions shine through. “What?”

Leaning against the cabinet that she didn’t currently have open, Kayo watched with amusement as the firebender took a step backwards, her feet catching on something, the metal chair from the way it rocked, before almost falling backwards, her hands flying out to center herself before she could. Those few seconds had Kayo laughing as she went back to her snooping. She was no fool. She knew that Rai looked at her differently than she did their other friends, and she knew that when the girl had taken to being her own personal guard it wasn’t out of _just_ friendship. She was quite aware of her friend’s feelings towards her. And she’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel the same kind of affection towards the girl. But her father’s words, if you could call the drunken bastard a father, had always haunted her when it came to what was expected of her. _“You’ll marry a man of good breeding, someone with power. You’ll bare as many children as he could want. I won’t have you screwing up like your mother did. I’ll make sure you fall in line.”_

“Relax, hotshot, I’m messing with you. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if you had read it. It would explain how you knew so much about me before I ever even told you anything.”

From across the room, Kayo could hear the huff that came from the firebender as she closed the drawer she’d been looking through, instead opting for another under a different letter. “I…have no response to that.”

The firebender watched as she friend faltered slightly in her teasing, her hands stalling in pulling out another file as she raised an eyebrow at stared at her. “So you have read it!”

Rai shrugged, going over the list Kwan left her one last time before moving from around his desk, stopping as she reached the filing cabinets where Kayo stood, reading through some poor soul’s life story. “I’m done, so whenever you’re done snooping through people’s lives we can go.”

The older girl waved her away, continuing to read whoever’s file she’d pulled out. “I’m almost done. Why isn’t your file in there?”

Frowning, Rai’s eyes traveled from her friend to the open drawer. Sure enough, Kayo had opened the drawer where her file was supposed to have been sitting. The firebender had seen it before, when Kwan had told her to unfortunate news that her parents had indeed been killed not longer after her first birthday. It was one of the smallest in the cabinet, since the firebender had bounced around from home to home until Kwan took her in. “It’s not?”

Kayo shook her head, placing the file that she’d been reading back into it’s spot before ushering to the drawer. “No. Take a look for yourself.”

Rai’s frown deepened as she searched through the drawer, coming up empty. “What the hell? It’s supposed to be here.”

“You’ve never looked at it before?”

Shaking her head, Rai’s fingers stilled in their movements of looking through the number of names. “Only once. I don’t exactly like to relive the past.”

As the firebender’s words faltered as she remembered something Kwan had told her as he closed the file after revealing the news of her parents death to her, when she’d asked him if there was any information on them. _“Don’t go looking too far into your past, kid. You might not like what you find.”_

Slamming the drawer closed, and startling her roommate, Rai moved back around to Kwan’s desk, trying every drawer in it until she came across one that wouldn’t budge. Kwan never kept anything locked while he was gone, just in case she needed access to it. There was obviously something there that he didn’t want anyone to see, Rai herself included.

“Do you have a pin?”

Kayo nodded, reaching into her pocket for the pile of pins she kept to put her hair up on missions and during matches, handing one over to her roommate. “What are you doing?”

Rai glanced up from her spot crouched on the floor, the pin in one hand as she stared up at her friend. “If I tell you something, you have to swear that it stays between us.”

The older girl nodded, leaning over the edge of the desk and watching as Rai used the pin on the lock of the drawer. “When we were back at the University, in Asami Sato’s office, I took another file that had nothing to do with the plans for the prototypes Kwan wanted.”

“What was the file about?”

Chewing on her bottom lip out of concentration, Rai adjusted her hand slightly before trying to find the right spot in the lock with the pin. “Nothing in particular, just a bunch of newspaper clips about her mother’s death and her father’s arrest. But there was also one that talked about a hit and run accident that she was involved in. She was apparently in a coma for a few days afterwards.”

“Okay…what does that have to do with all of this? Why are you so keen on finding your information anyway? You just said that you didn’t like looking at it, why do you want it now?”

“There was also a death certificate with my birthdate on it. I have the file back in our room, under my dresser and I didn’t think much of it. But I do find it weird that it’s my birthdate on that certificate and that the only time I’ve seen my file is when I first came here.”

Kayo blinked a few times before leaning against the edge of the desk. “You do know what you’re insinuating, don’t you? That Kwan has been withholding information about you and has also been lying about you for the past four years?”

Finally there was click, and Rai handed the hair pin back to her friend before pulling the drawer out. “I’m not saying that this is what’s happening. I just…I have this feeling that Kwan doesn’t want me to see my file and that I wasn't meant to find that certificate in Asami’s office.”

“And that would mean what? That the CEO of Future Industries and the Avatar’s wife could have the answers to everything you’ve been looking for?”

The firebender shrugged, her name written on the side of a file that looked like it occupied most of the desk drawer. Rai made quick work of pulling it out, sitting it down on the desk top before taking a seat in the metal chair that Kwan usually occupied. “I’m not expecting anything from anyone, but I do want to know why my information has been locked away in Kwan’s desk. Information that appears to have grown since the last time I saw it.”

Kayo couldn’t fathom how calm and collected the firebender was, not after the two had sat down at Kwan’s desk, knowing no one would bother them inside the office and both had taken to reading through the pile of paperwork. Letters, more specifically that had been exchanged between Kwan and Hiroshi Sato sixteen years ago, the latter stating that the monetary compensation the R.F. leader was getting would be forwarded for his services after the “event” had happened. Whatever “event” that was supposed to happen clearly didn’t end up the way Hiroshi had wanted, and one letter in particular had the businessman threatening to pull the plug on the payment following Kwan’s “rash and unnecessary behavior.” Of course, Kwan being the ever sweet-talker that he was stated that he’d done his part and more, but wasn’t planning on asking the man for more money than he had been promised, and when the money was handed over, everything would go back to normal. But the firebender had been reading the papers quietly, while one hand gripped the death certificates that Kwan had presented to her three years ago, certificates that somehow didn’t tie into whatever purpose these letters had.

“Okay, what is this event thing? Were they selling him drugs? Or illegal goods that Future Industries was using in their merch?”

Letting out a sigh, the firebender placed the letter she’d been reading down on the desk, confusion written all over her face. “I don’t know, and I don’t know why these are all in my file. None of this is making sense. Not these letters, not the certificate that I found in Asami’s office, not the other two of my parents, nothing.”

“You could always just ask Kwan?”

“Are you joking? He’d have me hung and punished for a week if he found out I broke into his drawer and found these.”

The two girls sat in silence for a few moments before Kayo kicked herself off the edge of the desk, where she’d made herself a seat for the better part of the time they’d been looking in the firebender’s file. “Whatever is going on, it’s not adding up. There’s no way Kwan would have sent us to the University if he’d known about that death certificate you found in Sato’s office. He had to have known that if you found it, it would spark some kind of interest in finding out more about your past, even if he advised that you didn’t. He obviously didn’t want anyone to find these letters either, and all we’re doing is drawing a bunch of blanks. Let’s just…think about this for a while. There’s got to be something here that connects all of this somehow.”

Rai glanced up from the papers, frowning up at the taller girl. “Why are you so interested in this? Whatever went down between the two of them, it obviously has something to do with me, but I don’t understand why you’re even still here. If I’d brought anyone else with me, and broke into our boss’ office, they would have already ran off out of fear of punishment from Kwan. Actually, now that I think about it, you need to leave. I can’t have you risking your neck for something that-.”

“Doesn’t involve me? Rai, if this involves you, then I’m automatically going to be a part of it. You’re my best friend and whatever is going on, I want to help you figure it out. Besides, I know you. You’ll get aggravated at not being able to figure it out by yourself and try and forget you ever broke into Sato’s office until it eats away at you and you do something reckless. I am _not_ going through another rooftop conversation with you, so suck it up and let me help you.”

The firebender raised an eyebrow, eyeing her roommate before shrugging and returning her attention back to the stack of papers on the desk below her. “Okay.”

It was Kayo’s turn to raise an eyebrow as the firebender stood up, gathering both stacks of papers and letters before walking towards the office door. “We should start looking into whatever “event” that Hiroshi and Kwan were talking about. I think if we can figure out what that was, then we might be able to start connecting the dots.”

“Which is why we’re going to the University.”

Kayo followed the firebender out of the office, hoping that they wouldn’t bring too much attention to themselves with the pile of paperwork Rai was carrying. “Why would we go there?”

“Because whatever “event” they were talking about, I doubt it went unnoticed.”

“And you’re thinking that the University’s public records will give us a clue?”

Rai, who’d been walking a few paces in front of her roommate turned, a small smile gracing her features. “Exactly.”

           

* * *

 

 “Okay, so the date on these letters date back to around…sixteen years ago.”

Rai nodded, standing on the balls of her feet to reach the section of public records, pulling out a few parchments and what looked like picture albums that were twice the size of normal ones. “I’ve got police records, hospital records and something labeled ‘clan activity.’ What the hell is clan activity?”

“Groups like the triad, the equalist movement and so on.”

The firebender chuckled, taking a seat across from her roommate and friend, who was busying herself with the letters and papers they’d taken from Kwan’s office. “I never would have pegged you for a history buff.”

The older girl glanced up, the smile on her face not quite living up to it’s usual standards, which Rai thought might have something to do with the black eye the girl was sporting. Since leaving Kwan’s office, and after visiting their resident healer, Rai thought the bruising looked better than it had last night upon first seeing it. The owner of the bruise also seemed less distressed than before, and whether or not it was because of the girl’s time being healed with spirit water, Rai couldn’t say. But it was good to see her friend’s smile look less forced and more like the smiles she was accustomed to receiving. “My father was a historian. He used to keep books and everything of the city’s history in his office, and I would sit and read through them in my spare time. Those were some of the best memories I have before…everything happened. But, uh, yeah, I know a few things.”

Kayo’s smile was one of the few things that the firebender had grown to love. Despite seeming cold and distant to most people, she had a soft spot for her team mates. Kayo just happened to hold the larger portion of that soft spot. Why, Rai thought, was mostly thanks to those first few weeks the older girl had bothered her to the point that Rai couldn’t take it anymore and finally let her in. It also hadn’t helped that the firebender couldn’t get the girl out of her head after their first meeting when Kwan had introduced them, and asked if the firebender could show the new girl the ropes and everything inside the compound. From her brown hair that flowed around her shoulder is soft waves and always smelled like cherries, or the grey/blue color of her eyes, everything about the girl managed to settle in the forefront of Rai’s mind. Much like she was doing now, as the firebender realized she’d been staring at her friend for far much longer and need be. With a slight blush to her cheeks, which the older girl across from her happened to catch, the firebender cleared her throat, attempting to focus on the task at hand. Try and solve whatever puzzle that had fallen into her lap.

The two girls had managed to look through dozens of records by the time Rai felt like her head was going to explode. She’d read through more history of Republic City than she had any other form of information. And she’d memorized the entire history of the Hundred Year War. “Alright, this is proving to be impossible. Nothing here is going to help us figure this out.”

Across the table, Kayo suddenly sat up, slapping the laminated parchment in her hands onto the table top as she pointed to something printed on the paper. “Do you think whatever event Kwan and Hiroshi were talking about was an accident that occurred in the last month of winter sixteen years ago? Because that's when this last letter from Hiroshi is dated.”

“Not particularly, considering that was around the time I was born. But at least we have a start now. It's better than looking through the whole year.”

Kayo’s eyes snapped up from the parchment, widening slightly. “You were born in the last month of winter in 168 AG?”

The firebender nodded, sitting up straighter in her chair from where she’d been slouching following finding absolutely nothing of importance. “Yes. Just a few days before the winter solstice. Why? What did you find?”

“Okay, did you find anything else in that file you took from Sato’s office? Anything at all about a car accident with Hiroshi’s daughter?”

Rai nodded, letting her arms rest on the table before leaning forward to let her weight rest on them. “Yeah, something about a hit-and-run accident that left her unconscious for a day or two. What does that have to do with anything?”

Kayo picked up another piece of parchment before she pushed it across the table, turning it slightly so the firebender could see the printed words. “Apparently Hiroshi’s daughter was pregnant at the time. Or at least that’s what this article says. The rest says it was pulled before completion because of legal action, which I assume would be Hiroshi’s involvement. He apparently didn't want this getting out”

The older girl watched as the firebender read over the article before she glanced up, her face graced with that unreadable expression. “The death certificate I found in her office. It’s dated around the same time as the accident.”

Kayo stood up from the table, walking over to the police report section off to their right, her fingers brushing along the dates until she found the one she was looking for, pulling it off the shelf and flipping it open. Eventually, the girl found the report she was looking for, her heart dropping as she read over the written lines before looking up to find her roommate staring at her questioningly. “The kid that Hiroshi’s daughter was pregnant with. It didn’t survive the accident. The death certificate you found belongs to the baby.”

“Does it specify-?”

“It was a girl. Born and died on the 21st day of the last month of winter.”

“The same day I was born. And my parent’s death certificates, the ones that Kwan had in with these letters, they’re dated for the day of the accident.”

An awkward silence washed over the two as the information they uncovered set in. Kayo couldn’t bring herself to move from her spot standing next to shelves of police reports, while the firebender was simply staring off into space, gripping one of the letters they’d uncovered from Kwan’s office tightly.

Suddenly the firebender stood up, gathering whatever paperwork they’d brought before hurrying out of the library, leaving the other girl to sigh before placing the report in her hands back on the shelf. She followed after the firebender, weaving through the group of students that had begun to multiply like magic. Eventually, the older girl managed to catch up with her roommate, the smaller girl’s stature allowing her to move through the crowd better than her friend. “Rai, I don’t know what we just found out, but please, the last time you walked out like that you beat the crap out of my ex-boyfriend. And as much as I appreciated your knight-in-shining-armor moment last night, I really don’t think beating anyone up is going to help.”

When the older girl received no form of a reply she let out a sigh, pacing herself alongside her roommate. “Will you at least tell me where we’re going?”

Again, no reply came from the firebender, so Kayo simply tried to keep up with her, muttering apologizes to anyone she bumped into. Eventually the firebender stopped, forcing Kayo to walk into her back with a grunt. They’d managed to make it back to their home, but much like the other night when they’d broken into the CEO’s office, the firebender halted a few feet away from the door. “What am I supposed to do if all of this turns out to be true?”

“You survive. Just like you have before. Only this time, you won’t be alone. I promise.”

The firebender turned to her roommate, her face neutral but her jade-green eyes screaming so many different emotions that it almost knocked Kayo off her feet. “I can’t stay here if it is true.”

“I know.”

“And I can’t ask you to come with me.”

Kayo shrugged, taking a step forward and reaching out to grab both of the firebender’s hands. “Because you’re not going to ask me. Wherever you go, I go. It’s always been that way, and it always will. You’re my family, and we’re a team. How many times do I have to keep telling you this before you get it through that thick head of yours?”

Dropping her roommates hands, the firebender closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms around her friend tightly. “Probably a lot more.”

The older girl chuckled, resting her chin on top of the firebender’s shoulder. “Okay.”

After a few seconds, Rai stepped back, with a faint blush that matched the one she was wearing earlier at the library. “We should probably head inside.”

Kayo held her hand out, waiting until feeling the firebender’s hand in her own before interlocking their fingers and pulling her towards the entrance to the bar. Both girls were silent on the way down back to their room, both of them letting their thoughts consume them, their hands never leaving each other’s. And the last thought that both girls shared when they’d finally let go inside their shared room was how perfect their hands fit together.

****


	3. The Truth Hurts (Part One)

**_The Avatar and the White Dragon: Book One, Guidance_ **

**_Chapter Three:_ **

****

“Drop your arms lower. You want to be able to protect your face and your abdomen when in hand combat. Putting your arms at equal distance from both will allow you to do that.”

Rai watched as Kwan skilled two Earth benders, both boys out of breath and sweating on the ripped and tapped up mat, taking turns swinging at each between trying to find their second wind. It was pathetic, really, to the firebender, that two seventeen-year-old boys had only been sparring for ten minutes and were already out of breath.

“That’s enough. You both need to work on your stamina before you can continue on in your training. Hit the showers and then go lift some rocks.”

Even from across the room, Rai could see the two boys brighten up as they were released from their match. This round of recruits were obviously not going to impress anyone. _At least not with their work ethic_ , the firebender thought as she watched the two boys jogged off and out of her line of sight.

“Rai. You’re up.”

Steeling herself, much like she’d been doing since Kwan’s return over a week ago, the firebender stiffly stood up, grabbing the tape from one of the other firebender’s outstretched hands and wrapping them while trying to look everywhere but at her boss. Doing so only seemed to anger and sadden the girl.

“New girl. Yeah, the one with the pony tail. Let’s go, you’re sparring with her.”

Rai managed to glance up in time to see the person Kwan had been talking to. She stood broader and taller than most of the guys in the compound, her brown eyes raking up and down Rai’s form from the other side of the mat with humor. “You want me to fight her? No way, I’d squash her like a glowfly. Come on, teach, give me something to work with here.”

The firebender, who had finished wrapping her hands, now stood with them crossed across her body, waiting and watching the newcomer from her corner of the sparring mat. Kwan sighed, taking a step off the mat and motioning for the large girl to step on. She did so reluctantly, eyeing up the shorter girl in front of her.

“Easy first round for our first-timer. First one to be…let’s say…knocked out of the mat wins? Sounds good to you girls?”

The larger girl, who Rai couldn’t for the life of her remember the name of, nodded, jumping up and down as she “shook” herself out, something that only made the firebender roll her eyes before assuming her first stance. After giving a short, stiff nod, the room quietened to almost complete silence.

From across the mat, the tall Earth born native, judging by the green two piece shirt and shorts set the girl was wearing, stepped forward, her fist flying out in the direction of the firebender. However, Rai was prepared, easily side-stepping the girl’s advance, the firebender’s eyes drifting from the match to the opposite end of the room where her team was sitting, each watching the match with different expressions. Asha looked bored, having never really been into the whole combat part of their line of work, while Hayate looked clearly amused as he chewed on a wheat-stem, relaxing against the cement wall, sending a wink to the firebender. And of course, Kayo was on the ground in front of them, looking halfway between worried and…proud? Whatever it was, it was an emotion that Rai had seen on her friends face a thousand times when she’d caught her attention during one of her sparring matches. It was also a look that Rai couldn’t quite pinpoint to an exact degree. The older girl confused her and messed with her too much. Sometimes to the point that the firebender would get an ache in her head from thinking too much.

The sound of her opponent’s foot sliding across the mat pulled her attention away from her friends, managing to barely miss the arm that swung by her face. It had been so close that Rai had seen the indentions of scars along the girl’s knuckles from what she guessed was hours dealing with rocks. Waiting until the moment was clear, Rai ducked under the girl’s still outstretched arm, grabbing the girl by the back of her shirt before tugging her backwards, successfully sending her flying across the mat, but not outside of it’s boundaries.

Internally cursing herself for getting distracted by… _people_ , the firebender attempted to gather herself as the Earth Kingdom-girl pulled herself off the mat and glared up at her. Despite seeing the broad girl as an angry bull that seemed to see her a target, Rai relaxed her posture, watching as the other girl barreled across the mat, ready to knock the firebender out until a wall of flames stopped her from reaching said girl.

From through the flicker of the wall of flames, the Earth Kingdom-girl watched with wide-eyes as a smirk appeared on the firebender’s face, the flames flickering higher until they seemed to reach the ceiling, and with the distraction, Rai collided with the taller girl, sending her reeling backwards and off the mat in a matter of seconds.

Silence echoed around the room, until the sound of hands clapping pulled everyone from the girl groaning on the ground and towards their leader, who stood leaning against the cement wall with a small smile on his face. Eventually the whole room joined in on the clapping, until Rai stepped off the training mat and began to unwrap her hands, leaving Kwan to draw all the attention in the room towards himself again. “Lesson number one, recruits. Never let your guard down and be prepared for anything. You’re all dismissed.”

The members started filing out of the room, the sound of chatter and light laughs filling the room and the halls outside. Rai was fully planning to join her team for dinner when the sound of her name being called pulled her attention to where Kwan was standing, Cam on his left. “Hold back a second. I need to discuss something with you.”

The firebender nodded once at her roommate, who had walked up to the shorter girl following the statement from their boss, silently telling her that she’d find her after whatever he wanted to talk about. Rai watched as all three of her friends left the room, her roommate being the last to walk out, throwing her one last worried look over her shoulder before closing the training room doors behind her, leaving the firebender alone with the two Earth bending brothers.

“You know, I never got the chance to ask how things went while Cam and I were gone. Everything seemed to be in order when we returned, and no one died, so I supposed that’s a victory on your part. Well, I did notice the broken nose Nakio has been sporting recently. That have something to do with you?”

Rai shrugged, sitting down on the bench she’d been occupying earlier, slipping her jacket over her head while trying not to make eye-contact with either of the two men. “He got drunk and took his anger out on my roommate. Wasn’t it you who said any form of mutiny needed to be put out before it could spread like fire?”

“Yes. It does. Now, the reason I asked you stay behind is because I wanted to ask you something. I went to fetch something from my bottom drawer this morning and realized that the lock had been picked, and everything inside the drawer was missing. You, my little fireball, are my right-hand pick besides Cam. _Please_ don’t tell me you suddenly decided to become reckless and go breaking into my things.”

The firebender stood up straighter, letting her eyes close as she heard the two men approaching her. Tugging her bag over her shoulder, Rai turned, coming face-to-face with the man who’d taken pity on her all those years ago. Or at least what she’d thought was pity. Now, all the firebender could think of when seeing him was anger, hatred.. All of it, every single moment that she’d acted for him, in the name of what his movement stood for, had been because he’d planned it all along. Suddenly, standing this close to him, Rai didn’t need Kwan to confirm anything to her. She knew the truth just from the look in his eyes.

“It was you, wasn’t it? You ungrateful bit-!”

“Ungrateful?! You’re kidding me, right?! You told me my parents were _dead_. You’ve been lying to me, and using me for years! You-!”

Before the firebender could finish, her vision tunneled and the world around her turned to shadow and darkness. The last thing Rai could make out before completely blacking out was Cam and Kwan standing over her, looking down with angry looks on their features. “You really should have just kept your nose out of kid. I told you that you wouldn’t like what you found if you kept digging.”

 

* * *

 

“Hey! You with the white streaks and the split lip! Wake up!”

The firebender sucked in a breath as she squinted one eye open, the throbbing across her lower jaw and lip creating a headache large enough to force a groan from the sixteen-year-old. Remembering the voice that finally pulled her out of unconsciousness, the firebender glanced around her, flashes from the sparring match and afterwards filling her head. Eventually Rai’s eyes settled on a younger boy off to her left, sitting against the cement wall in grey clothes that were splattered with dirt and blood, looking worse for wear. “It’s about time you woke up. You’ve been out since they brought you down a few hours ago. Judging by that nasty looking lip you got there, you got it pretty rough. Where’d they pull you from?”

Swallowing, and flinching at the soreness from her apparent face injuries, the firebender shook her head, moving slightly until the rattling of metal and something cool to the touch around her wrists kept her from moving any further. Glancing over her shoulder, Rai frowned at the chains shackled around her wrists, both of which were behind the girl’s back. The chain itself was short, only a foot or two away from the wall where it was connected to. “I don’t…where the hell are we?”

The younger boy shrugged when Rai turned her attention back to him, the firebender watching as he glanced around the room, her own eyes following. It was relatively dark, and off to her right sat another kid, their own hands chained behind their back. Beyond that, the firebender couldn’t make out much of anything, maybe what looked like another human form. It was also quiet, Rai’s and the unnamed boy’s conversation echoing around the room. Or pit. Or wherever they were.

“I’m not sure. One second I’m at the market in Zaofu and the next I’m waking up here.”

Rai’s frown deepened as she looked over the boy. “As in the Earth Kingdom, Zaofu? That’s where you’re from?”

“Yeah, why? Are we not in the Earth Kingdom anymore?”

Letting out a sigh, the firebender let her head fall backwards, connecting with enough force to cause her lower jaw to flare up in pain and a kiss to come out. “Shit. Ow. Uh, no. We’re in Republic City. Unless they took me from the compound.”

“Republic City? Why the hell would they take me to Republic City?”

The firebender shrugged, turning her head slightly to squint at the boy. “I don’t know. How long have you been here?”

“I…I don’t know…I tried to keep track at first, but…they always bring bread and water down at some time. I’ve counted at least eight times they’ve been down, so maybe eight days? A week? Like I’m sure you can see, it’s kinda hard to keep track of time here. But you said something about a compound earlier? You’re from here? You’re one of them?”

Rai scoffed, closing her eyes as she tried to channel through the fog of the headache and pain. “I _used_ to be.”

“Ooh. So you must have done something really bad to earn that lip. What’d you do?”

Cracking an eye open, Rai caught the boy’s gaze. “I found out the leader of the group was possibly paid by my grandfather to fake my death.”

The boy’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow. Tough life then, huh, orphan girl?”

“So it would seem.”

The boy let out a chuckle as he glanced around the room, the sound of his laughter echoing back to him off the cement wall. “My name is Souta, by the way.”

“My name is Rai. How old are you, Souta?”

“I just turned fourteen. You?”

“Sixteen.”

“Wow, really? You’re kinda small for your age aren’t you?”

The firebender rolled her eyes, pushing herself off the wall. Despite the ache in her jaw and lip, nothing else really hurt. She was a little stiff, although the girl pegged it for sitting in the position she’d been passed out in. “I get that a lot.”

“You don’t say much do you?”

“I don’t have much to say.”

“I like that line. Can I use it sometime?”

“If you make it out of here, knock yourself out.”

“You think I won’t make it out of here?”

Even from where she was sitting, her face angled away from Souta’s face, she could practically see the sadness on the boy’s face. His voice had wavered upon asking the question, but the firebender wasn’t going to tell him any lies. She knew Kwan, and she knew this group. She knew what they were capable of. “I don’t know what to think anymore. Sorry, kid.”

From across the room, a door opened, flooding light into the room. Squinting against the sudden brightness, the firebender glanced around. Pass Souta, there were others chained up to the wall the same was they were, each of them dressed the same way as the boy.

“You’re awake. Good. I was afraid Cam had used a little too much force back there. How’s the lip?”

Rai could feel every muscle in her body tense at the sound of the voice. Glaring up at the figure encased in light, she didn’t need to see any details of his face to recognize the man’s voice. “What the hell are you doing with all these kids, Kwan?”

The figure shrugged, turning slightly as if surveying the other occupants in the room. “They’re a part of a…special project my brother and I are operating. I had actually hoped to bring you into the business, but, plans change, huh?”

“Cut the shit, Kwan. You’re selling them, aren’t you?”

The figure dropped down to the firebender’s level, grabbing a hold of the girl’s shirt collar before tugging her forwards slightly into the light, his hand moving up to grip the girl’s chin. Kwan let out a small smile when he heard the girl hiss at the contact. No doubt the girl’s jaw was hurting like hell from the blow she’d received. “What I’m doing with them is none of your concern. Now, I’m going to give you a second chance to redeem yourself here. I need another bender to stand by me when I publicly announce ourselves at the fair in three days. If you agree to come with me, I’ll forgive you for your treachery.”

The firebender glared at the man, ignoring the throbbing of her cheek as she felt her hands begin to warm slightly. “And if I refuse?”

Kwan let go of the girl’s chin, refusing to break the girl’s steely gaze. “Then you can rot in this hole. But keep in mind, I _made_ you. I took you in when no one else wanted you. You owe everything to me.”

As if possible, the girl’s green eyes darkened, and the older man was vaguely aware of the sound of metal clanking against the cement floor before the firebender’s fist connected with his face, successfully knocking the leader backwards and out of consciousness.

Standing on slightly wobbly legs, Rai shook her fist out, looking over towards the boy from Zaofu, who was wearing a shocked expression on his face as he stared at the unconscious man on the floor. As the firebender made her way towards him, Souta looked up at her, his mouth still hanging open after witnessing what the small girl had just accomplished. “Remind me to never piss you off. How did you break the chain?”

Bending down in front of the boy, the firebender shrugged, lighting a small flame in her hand to illuminate the area around them. The open door behind her offered little in visibility, but the flickering flame in her hand at least allowed her to see the boy’s face. “I’ve got my ways. Listen, by the time I get these off you and everyone else, he’ll be awake and will most likely kill me. I’m going to come back for you, okay? For you and all these others. I promise. Just hang in there, okay?”

Souta nodded, urging the firebender to hurry before the man woke up, promising to keep quiet about anything she’d told him or that he’d even talked to the firebender, something she hoped would keep the boy alive and stationary until she could figure out what to do next. Because the only thing that was running through the firebender’s mind now was getting the hell out of this place.

Hurrying through the open door, the firebender glanced around the hallway, leaning against the doorframe to try and gather her bearings. She recognized the hall as one of the lower levels and automatically bee-lined for the staircase, taking the steps two at time before bursting through the doorway, earning confused looks from the other members around her. The firebender continued down the hallway, ignoring the people around her as she tried to mentally calm herself. _Breathe. Find the team, gather what you need, get out._

Finally the firebender managed to make it to her room, fumbling with the door handle due to shaky hands before it opened and she stumbled through, the three occupants in the room snapping their heads up to look at the intruder with confused looks.

Kayo was the first to stand up, briskly walking towards her roommate, taking in her panicked look, the split lip and the bruise forming the left side of her jaw. “What the hell happened to you? And where have you been? You’ve been gone for hours and-.”

The firebender shook her head, wrapping her arms around the girl in a tight hug that lasted all of two seconds before she pulled away and hurried further into the room, pulling out a bag from under her bed before beginning to pile clothing and whatever she thought she’d need into it before turning to face the other two members of her team. “Not enough time to explain. You two need to go and pack a bag with clothing and anything else you want. Kayo and I will meet you at the University. Move quickly, but be quiet and get out before anyone sees you. Go. Now.”

The two simply nodded, hurrying off the bed to follow their team leader’s orders, leaving a still slightly-frazzled firebender with her equally confused roommate. “Rai, what’s wrong?”

The firebender moved to her roommate’s side of the room, pulling out her own bag before handing it over to the taller girl. “Please, just do as I say and I will explain everything to you when we get to the meeting place, okay?”

Kayo frowned, but knew to trust her friend, so as she began to hurry in packing whatever she needed and a few of her other personal belongings into the bag she’d been given, choosing to keep quiet as the firebender rummaged through the rest of their room. Rai managed to grab her side-bag, kneeling down by her dresser to grab the papers and file folder she’d kept hidden there and quickly shoving them into the bag. When she turned around, her roommate was waiting patiently by the door, her grey-blue eyes filled with concern. “Ready?”

The older girl nodded, following her roommate out of their room and down the hall, sticking as close to the firebender as she could. “We’re not coming back are we?”

Rai shook her head, reaching behind her to grasp the girl’s hand in her own, feeling her feet begin to quicken their pace. They’d managed to make it all the way to the common room when the firebender stopped mid-step, her grip on the older girl’s hand tightening as her eyes locked on to Kwan’s brother leaning against the make-shift bar counter, two large Earth bender Rai remembered meeting once on either side of him.

Shifting her body slightly, the firebender took a few steps backwards, making sure to keep her own body between the three men, who had now begun to advance on the two, and her roommate.

“Did you really think Kwan wasn’t expecting this? How’d you break the chains?”

Letting go of her roommates hand, the firebender gently shoved her towards the entrance to the compound, handing over her backpack as she did so. “Go. Meet the others. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Kayo nodded, although she knew her roommate couldn’t see her, keeping an eye trained on the men before silently disappearing up the staircase and into the bar, out of sight. The firebender waited until she could no longer hear her friend’s footsteps on the wooden floors above her before returning her attention back to the three men in front of her. She narrowly missed a piece of flying cement that one of the Earth benders through at her, ducking under the rock and throwing herself out of the way of the dust and rubble, taking the opportunity of the cloudy room to take off towards the stairs, sending a series of blasts of fire behind her to dodge the three men charging at her. “Stop her!”

The firebender let out a string of curses when she noticed the piece of wall start that served as the entrance of the compound begin to move inward, the gap between the rest of the wall and the block closing by the second. In motions that felt snail-like, Rai pushed herself off the last step, using whatever energy she could muster up to make it through the small opening of the wall and into the bar before time began to speed up again, the firebender falling onto her knees while the dust that had been disrupted due to the closing of the block of rock behind her.

Jax, the bartender and all the other patrons of the bar watched as the sixteen-year-old scampered to her feet, shouldered the wooden side door, her feet never slowing their pace as she sprinted down the alley way and through the dimly lit streets of the city, not even bothering to stop at any sign of traffics and even barreling through a group of men in suits. She didn’t hear their protests, or the sounds of the Satomobiles’ horns, her rapid heartbeat filling her ears even as she begun to slow upon seeing the University in the distance.

Breathing heavily, Rai slowed until she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk leading to the front entrance of the University, spinning on her heel so quickly she was sure she’d just given herself whiplash to make sure she hadn’t been followed before leaning forward and resting her hands on her knees, breathing in and out slowly to try and regain some composure.

“Rai?”

The firebender jumped, flames automatically engulfing her arms as she stumbled backwards, eyes wide and heartrate returning to abnormal speed until she met the worried gazes of her teammates. Almost immediately, the flames withered out, and the four teenagers found themselves staring at each other, no one knowing how to approach the topic of what just occurred.

“What the hell just happened?”

Rai let out a sigh, glancing between her teammates before her eyes scanned the area around them. She wasn’t expecting to find anyone out at this time of night. The sun had gone down long ago, the only illumination coming from the lights surrounding the University’s main building and the surrounding shops that were still open. “What I’m about to tell you all will probably sound…absurd, but…I recently found out that my parents are alive. Or at least my mother is. It, uh, turns out that Kwan was hired by my grandfather to basically fake my death.”

The only two members who hadn’t been a part of the “investigation” to figure out the mystery revolving the firebender’s findings, stared at their team leader with expressionless faces. “Wait, you’re being serious?”

Rai nodded, taking her side bag from her roommate before pulling out the letters sent between Hiroshi and Kwan, the fake death certificates and the articles and police reports they’d _borrowed_ from the library and handed them over to her friends. Both Hayate and Asha were quiet as they glanced over the papers, frowns settling on their faces. Moments later, when they both had read and re-read through everything they’d been given, Hayate handed the papers back to the firebender, shaking his head. “If all of this is true…what about us?”

The firebender frowned, carefully placing the papers back in her bag. “What?”

“Us. If Kwan was manipulative and sadistic enough to fake your death and the attack on your mother, then there’s a possibility that the events surrounding our own involvement with the group could be lies, right?”

Rai glanced between her friends, catching the uncomfortable look on her roommates face before shrugging. “I can’t say whether or not that’s a possibility, guys. I don’t even know what I re-opened when I found all of it, but I know I can’t go back. I refuse to. And I can’t let any of you go back either, because the first thing they’ll do is try and get something out of you all or use you guys to try and force me out of the shadows. Kwan is not who we thought he was. There’s a lot of things we were kept in the dark about.”

Silence passed between the four, the firebender watching with concern as Hayate began to pace the small area between the four of them while Asha just sat down on the sidewalk with a look of panic on her face. Kayo stood off to the side, her arms crossed over her chest as she tried to gauge the reactions of her teammates after hearing what they’d uncovered.

“You do know what this means, don’t you? Leaving like we just did. They’re going to come after us and it’s going to be a death sentence.”

The firebender nodded, picking up her backpack from where the others sat, slipping it over one shoulder. “I know, and I am fully prepared to face it head on. I’m not going to ask you all to do that, though. Just gather whatever you can and get out of the city, okay? Get somewhere safe. I have to go to the police station and do something. Anything. I just can’t let Kwan keep doing all of this. It has to stop.”

Kayo’s head snapped up at the firebender’s words, tensing at just the thought of her best friend facing the entire movement all alone. “What? No. I’m not leaving you. Not now, not after everything that we just found out and after what just happened.”

Rai watched as her roommate grabbed her own backpack before practically stomping over to where the firebender stood, looking annoyed at the thought of even letting the sixteen-year-old face any of this alone. “Seriously? Why can’t you just listen to me for once and see that I’m only doing this because I want to protect you?”

“I don’t need your protection, I can handle myself. Just shut up and let me help you, okay? I’m not leaving you all alone to fight this or whatever could happen. You and these two are all I have and I’m not about to just walk away from that.”

The firebender huffed, turning to look at the other two who had gathered their own bags. Hayate raised an eyebrow, nodding his head once. “She’s right, you know. Since we were first teamed up, you’ve kept us from getting our asses handed to us and we’ve done the same for you. We’re not about to just walk away from everything we’ve been through together.”

Asha nodded, bypassing her three friends. “I agree, but I feel like we need to get out of the open like this. Kwan’s probably sent a whole bunch of his loons to look for us. To the police station, then?”

Hayate shrugged, taking off after the girl, leaving the firebender alone with her roommate who was still sporting a rather pissed off look. “Kayo-.”

“No. Don’t even…I told you earlier that I wasn’t just going to stand by and watch you do all of this alone. You are my best friend, and I care about you a whole hell of a lot more than you’ll ever know. Stop trying to push me away and let me help you.”

The firebender frowned, staring at her friend’s retreating form as the blue-eyed girl took off in the same direction as their two friends. “I’m not trying to push you away.”

Before Rai could realize what was happening, a piece of rock came flying towards her head, barely missing. The firebender rolled her eyes, following after her team. “That could have hit me, you know!”

The firebender watched as her roommate shrugged, never turning around to face her as she followed the others. “But it didn’t! Move your ass, Rai!”

 


	4. The Truth Hurts (Part Two)

**_The Avatar and the White Dragon: Book One, Guidance_ **

**_Chapter Four:_ **

****

“So what’s the game plan exactly? We can’t just march into the police station and yell, ‘hey, there’s a bunch of people that have been living under the city for years now waiting to overthrow the government and their leader is capable of some weird shit, who, by the way, will be looking for all of us soon so be prepared.’ Is that what we’re gonna lead with?”

“Of course not, you idiot. They’d lock us up before we’d even get the chance to explain any of it. I say we just anonymously leave the papers you guys found with a note explaining everything and we get the hell out of here.”

“Like that’s an even better plan than Hayate’s, Asha? Someone has to go in and tell Chief Beifong what’s going on. We should vote or something.”

“Well, I’m not doing it.”

They’d been standing outside the police station for a few minutes, not worried of the possibility of being recognized or confronted. This part of the town was active with life, the streets filled with people seeing movers, or eating out. Rai sat on the edge of the police station steps, watching her three teammates bicker back and fourth about what they were going to be saying to the police. Suddenly the firebender stood up, tightening her grip on the bag across her chest. “I have an idea. Follow my lead.”

The other three members shared a confused look, but followed the firebender into the police station nonetheless, earning a confused and warry look from the officers stationed at the front desk. “Shouldn’t you kids be home? It’s kind of late to be out, isn’t it?”

Rai nodded, motioning for the three behind her to wait as she walked up to the desk. “Is Chief Beifong available for talking?”

The two officers sat behind the metal desk and wearing the exact same uniforms glanced between each other before back at the teenage girl on the opposite side. “The Chief doesn’t deal with many cases, young lady. If there’s something wrong, we can help you.”

The firebender nodded, leaning on the edge of the metal desk, her fingers tapping the cool metal lightly. “There actually is something wrong. Uh, wasn’t Asami Sato’s office broken into earlier last week?”

“I’m sorry, that…that was never released to the public, how do you know about that?”

“Also the library should be missing a few articles and police reports, no? Or those symbols that have been located all over the city? Or, if memory serves me correctly, the threatening letters that have been send to the president and this very station?”

One of the officer stood up from his seat while the three remaining members of Rai’s team voiced their opposition on what the firebender was doing. She was going to _fink_ on all of them. “What do you four have to do with any of those things?”

The firebender nodded, slipping her backpack off her shoulders and laying it on the metal desk top before holding out both of her hands. “I was the one who broke into Asami Sato’s office and stole the plans for her prototype, I am also the one who stole those articles and reports. And we all are in serious danger. Me, my friends, the whole freaking city, now please, I need to speak with Chief Beifong and the Avatar. Immediately.”

* * *

“What the hell were you thinking? You just landed us in prison. How is this supposed to be helping anything?”

The firebender glanced up from where she was sitting on the bench, the metal serving as handcuffs slapped around her wrists letting out a ping as she did so. “It was the only thing I could think of at the time, okay? Be thankful we’re safe here.”

Hayate grumbled under his breath, turning to face away from the firebender, his own cuffs shackling with his movement. The firebender rolled her eyes, turning to look at the other two occupants in the cell, raising a silent eyebrow to ask if either of them had anything else to add to the discussion. Asha simply shook her head with wide eyes, knowing better than to question anything that the firebender thought was best for them. Kayo, still angry with her roommate from earlier, refused to keep eye contact with the younger girl for longer than a few seconds, making a point to look at everything in the small, windowless cement room they’d been locked in.

“Alright, where is the little piece of-?”

All four heads snapped around towards the sound of the new voice, the Chief of the police force scowling at them as she glanced between the group. “They didn’t tell me you were children. Damn it, Lou! Which one of you is the leader of this little…posse?”

Rai stood up, waving one of her cuffed hands and she made her way towards the metal bars where the Chief stood. “Right. That’s me.”

“You come with me. The rest of you can sit here and…I don’t know…think about what you’ve done wrong.”

The firebender smirked over her shoulder at her team, letting the metalbender attach her cuffs to a wire built into the Chief’s uniform before she was whisked away down the hallway they’d been led down to their cell. Eventually they came to stop outside a door, where one of the officers from the front desk stood with two others on either side of him against the back wall of the room. The Chief shoved the firebender into the one of the two chairs in the room, attaching the cable and therefor the girl to the table. “Start talking, kid. I don’t have all night.”

“Where’s the Avatar?”

“The Avatar will be here shortly. Start. Talking.”

Rai sighed, leaning back in the chair before blowing a piece of her hair that had fallen down from it’s makeshift and messy pony tail, the black and white hair flying up around her face as she carefully thought about how to approach all of this. “Where would you like for me to start?”

The metalbender sat down in the remaining chair, her arms crossing over her chest as she studied the young girl across from her. She looked vaguely familiar, but the bender couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “You can start by telling me who the hell you are.”

The firebender nodded, figuring it was as good a place to start as any. “My name is Rai. I’m a firebender and I am, or was, part of an group of people who call themselves The Reformists. Their goal is pretty simple, they blame the government for everything that’s happened and caused each of them to suffer and they want to take control of it, run it themselves. For years, they’ve been acquiring any and all information they could gather on anything that could be deemed a road-block for them. I joined when I was twelve, under the impression that my parents had been involved in a fire following Kuvira’s attempt to take over the city. The Reformists leader, Kwan, he offered me a place to stay and food if I helped him. About a week and half ago, when we were asked to stake out the University, I broke into Asami Sato’s office because Kwan had been wanting any information about military weapons being researched at Future Industries, specifically the research that was used by Kuvira using spirit vines and energy.  It was going to be one of the first things they tried to make to use in their efforts, and while I was looking for the prototype, I stumbled across-.”

The sixteen-year-old faltered slightly in her explanation as they door to the room swung up, revealing a half-awake Avatar, frowning and wincing at the brightness of the lights in the room. “Can someone please explain to me why I was called down here at one in the morning?”

“Shut it and listen up, Korra. Small-fry over here was just explaining what she found and stole from your wife’s office the day she broke into it.”

The Avatar turned her attention to the firebender, raising an eyebrow. “That was you? No wonder you were able to get away unnoticed, you’re tiny.”

“I am not that little! Anyway, as I was saying, I found a file in Asami’s desk that held a bunch of newspaper clippings about Hiroshi’s arrest and his eventual death, her mother’s death following the robbery at their mansion, and about a hit-and-run car wreck she was involved in about sixteen years ago. There was also was death certificate for a child, a baby. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but the date on the certificate caught my attention. It was my birth date. So I took it and went back to the compound, which I will give you the location of in a second. A few days later, my roommate and I were in our boss’ office looking at the information he keeps on everyone he recruits and we noticed my info was missing. We went looking for it, and I found it with letters written between Kwan and Hiroshi Sato, talking about some payment for whatever Hiroshi wanted Kwan to do. None of it made sense, and none of it added up until my roommate, the blue-eyed girl back in our cell, she found an article at the library about the accident dated with the same date as the death certificate I found in Sato’s office, and a police report recounting the details of the accident and how Sato was pregnant and I-.”

The Avatar’s head snapped up at that information, the frown she’d been wearing from earlier deepening. “Pregnant? Asami doesn’t have any kids.”

Beifong held a hand up as she stared at the teenager in front of her, the sudden realization of where she’d seen the girl before hitting her like a ton of bricks. “ _Oh my_ _Spirits_ , you’re the kid, aren’t you?”

The firebender shrugged, nodding her head backwards in the direction of the three officers, the middle one, the one from the front desk, was holding the girl’s side bag in his hand. “Everything I found is in that bag. I brought it with me, but the main point of all of this is that Kwan knows I figured it all out and he’s pissed. He’s out for blood. My blood. And he’s not going to stop until he has it. He was planning to publicly announce himself and the group at the festival in a few days, no doubt showing off all the kids he basically kidnapped from Zaofu. But he has to be stopped.”

Korra pushed herself off the wall, waving her hands around herself while shaking her head. “Wait, hold up. Asami doesn’t have a kid. I think my wife would have told me about this.”

Beifong turned to look at the Avatar, shaking her head. “Korra, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but the girl isn’t lying. Sixteen years ago, Asami _was_ hit by a car and it looked pretty deliberate. And she _was_ pregnant, but Hiroshi wanted to keep it on the down low. So we did. But we all had been told the baby didn’t survive. I’m sorry, kid.”

Korra glanced between the Chief and the girl, feeling her anger and confusion bubble up inside of her. “She…I...are you kidding me?! Why the hell didn’t she ever tell me about this?!”

Rai sighed, shaking her head. “I don’t know why she never told you, but that’s not the point, Avatar Korra. I didn’t come here to ask for anything, I just…I figured she deserved to know the truth.”

“You honestly don’t expect any of us to believe that you’re in this for the greater good? Given the track record you just gave us?”

“I don’t want anything. Look,” The firebender ushered to herself as best as she could with her hands cuffed to the table. “Let me pay for my mistakes, and try and do right by those who came before me.”

The Avatar scowled, crossing her arms over her chest as she studied the young girl sitting across the room, who was looking at her with pleading eyes. It was obvious the firebender wasn’t lying, but still, lives were about to uprooted. Again. Just the thought of what was to come made the Avatar groan, her arms dropping down to dangle by her sides. “Are you sure about all of this? Because I don’t want to bring Asami into this unless I have to.”

Rai nodded, tearing her eyes away from the older woman to frown down at her hands, the appendages clenching. “Trust me, Avatar Korra. I wish I _was_ wrong.”

“Then I guess I need to go talk to my wife. Lin, can you spare a few officers to keep an eye out on her? Also, don’t do anything with her until I get back, okay?”

The chief of police nodded, both her and the firebender watching as the Avatar left the room, the air around them suddenly filling with a pregnant pause until Lin stood up, shaking her head. “Get this kid back with the others. And take their cuffs off. Rai, do you mind if I take those letters you found? I think it might be easier for Mrs. Sato to process all of this if she had tangible proof in her hands.”

Rai quietly thanked the officer who uncuffed her, rubbing at her wrists while the others handed her bag over to the Chief. “I have no use for them anymore. She should keep them.”

The officers escorted the young firebender back down the hall, the Chief keeping a hand on the girl’s shoulder until they reached the holding cell where her friends were, all three rushing to the bars and asking if she was okay.

The firebender chuckled slightly, trying not to let the conversation she’d shared with the police and the Avatar cloud her brain too much. Or at least not show how much pain it had been causing her as she stepped into the cell. “Guys, I’m fine. Really.”

Once they were all cuff free, a collective sigh was heard around the cell. Beifong watched as the group all went to try and find something to occupy themselves with. Luckily, one of her on-duty officers had a game of Pai Sho hidden in their desk, which was currently holding the attention of three of the teenagers. Save for the firebender who, in Lin’s opinion, had been through too much for someone so young. The young girl was seated by the bars of the door, her head resting back against the metal as she stared blankly ahead. “When Korra gets back, I’ll come find you four. Oh and, Rai?”

“Yeah?”

Reaching through the bars, the Chief placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder, squeezing slightly. “You didn’t deserve any of what’s happened to you. Despite everything you’ve done, this outweighs it. You did good, kid. And we’re going to protect you with everything we’ve got, alright? You’re safe here.”

Rai was slightly confused by the woman’s words. She’d heard rumors of the infamous Chief Beifong. She’d even seen the woman a time or two on her scouting missions. The woman was known to be a hard ass, stubborn with words like venom when need be. Any ounce of compassion was hardly ever shown, and yet, here she was, offering the girl safety and praising her for her decision to come forward. “Thank you. Although I don’t deserve it.”

“You deserve a lot more than you think you do, kid.”

* * *

 

Across town the Avatar found herself hesitating outside her wife’s office at Future Industries, unsure of how to approach the topic of the teenage girl she’d just met down at the police station. Thinking back to the moment she’d stepped into that interrogation room, she’d been somewhat confused as to why Beifong had said she’d been asked to come down there for a teenager. And after the girl had explained everything, Korra had thought this was some sort of terrible dream that she couldn’t wake up from. Until the girl had really got a look at her features. She had Asami’s eyes and hair, save for the few white streaks. Even if Korra didn’t want to believe it was true, but there was too much tipping the scales.

Shaking herself of her thoughts, the Avatar schooled her features, knocking on the door to the office before glancing around the otherwise empty area. It was one in the morning, after all, but she’d become accustomed to the CEO working until late. Usually there were at least a few stragglers of workers or other engineers trying to fit in some last-minute work/research. Thankfully, though, everyone else had already left, leaving the two to have this conversation in private. If Asami hadn’t even told her about the pregnancy, she most likely didn’t want anyone else to know about.

The door opened fairly quickly, revealing a confused looking CEO. “Korra? What are you doing here? I thought you said you were calling it a night a few hours ago?”

“Uh, yeah, I had. Beifong called me at the house and said they’d found the people who broke into your office and stole those prototype plans. They also gave us a little more information about the newest threat in Republic City. Apparently there’s a group of people who call themselves the Reformists, and they’re planning on overthrowing the government.”

The CEO raised an eyebrow, leaning against the door frame of her office. “Well that at least explains why they took the plans for my firebending armor and the research on using the spirit vine weapons. Did Beifong get them back? Or at least what else was stolen, too?”

Korra scratched at the back of her neck, clearing her throat. “Yeah, she has them down at the stations. I think she’ll give them back eventually, but there’s something else that we found out. The people who broke into your office, they’re kids. Teenagers, actually. Four of them, only two were responsible for the actual breaking in part.”

“A teenager? What about their parents? Are they apart of the group, too?”

“Uh, no. Not exactly. They’re all orphans. Well, some were taken from abusive households, but it’s mostly just orphans. Hey, ‘Sami, I need to ask you something, okay? And I need you to be 100% honest with me. Can you do that?”

The CEO nodded, pushing herself off the frame to wrap her wife in a hug. “Korra, we’ve been married for five years. You know I’ll always be honest with you.”

The Avatar returned the hug, letting out a sigh. “Please don’t freak out…but…do you have a daughter?”

Almost immediately the CEO tensed in the Avatar’s arms, causing the Avatar to tighten her grip around her wife. “Asami-.”

“How did you find out about that?”

Korra internally flinched at the coldness of her wife’s voice. The last time she’d ever heard it like that was when she’d first returned to Republic City following Zaheer poising her. When the CEO had admitted to speaking to her father, something the Avatar had asked if she thought was a good idea, only to have Asami tell her she had no right to march back into her life after three years and act like she knew what was right. “Why didn’t you tell me about the accident?”

“Korra, I really don’t want to talk-.”

“We need to talk about it, ‘Sami. Please.”

Korra watched as a thousand emotions flashed across her wife’s face before the CEO nodded, ushering towards the office behind her. “Can we at least sit down? I don’t think I can have this conversation standing up.”

The Avatar followed her wife into the office, taking a seat in front of her wife’s desk and waiting until the CEO was seated in her own plushy chair before bringing up the topic. “I thought we agreed that there would be no secrets between us when we got married?”

The CEO signed, leaning forward in her chair, letting her head fall in her hands. “I know. I’m sorry, it’s just…it took me days to even move from my bed after the accident. I told myself I’d just forget it ever happened and never bring it up again.”

“So you thought it was better to keep it to yourself for the past sixteen years?”

“I admit it probably wasn’t the best idea, but I was sixteen.”

Silence passed between the two women before Korra figured she should just get it all out of the way. “Asami, the girl who broke into your office, the reason why she took that file with that death certificate is…how do I even tell you this? She took it because the date was familiar to her. It was her birth date. She...she survived the accident. She's alive.”

The Avatar watched as the CEO’s head snapped up, her usually warm and inviting emerald eyes cold and hard, glazed over with unshed tears. “That’s…impossible.”

 


	5. Welcome to Air Temple Island

**_  
_ **

**_The Avatar and the White Dragon: Book One, Guidance_ **

**_Chapter Five:_ **

****

“Welcome to Air Temple Island.”

Rai glanced around, taking in her surroundings before her attention settled back onto the airbender, who had introduced himself as Tenzin, standing a few feet in front of them, a smaller group of airbenders on one side of the tattooed master, the Avatar on his other. “Lin, Avatar Korra and I all believe that the mistakes that have been made by you four as just that, mistakes that _have been_ made. It’s in the past. Since none of you have guardians, you’ve been released into the custody of the Air Nation, which includes myself and Avatar Korra. You’re here so we can keep all of you safe until the Reformists can be stopped. However, it has been decided that, with your willingness, our key to stopping the Reformists lies within you four. Here you are being given a choice. You can stay, and train with the Avatar and whoever else can be of assistance, or you’ll be given the chance to leave Republic City.”

The firebender turned her head slightly, waiting for the reactions of her teammates. When no one spoke she directed a short nod towards the airbender, who was patiently waiting for an answer from the four teenagers. “We’ll stay and fight.”

Tenzin nodded in return, ushering out with his hand towards the two separate buildings that they’d passed walking up from the docks upon arrival to the island. “Those are the dormitories. The one of the left is where you girls will be staying, and the right is for the boys. Some of the airbenders will be showing to your rooms, and we will leave you all to get settled in. Dinner will be ready at sundown, you can join us back here then if you choose.”

Korra stepped forward, sending a stern gaze to the four newcomers. “Don’t think you’ll be getting off so lightly for everything you’ve done. Lin has also asked me to come up with some form of punishment for you four, which starts tomorrow morning.”

Rai smiled slightly as there was a collective groan from Asha and Hayate, who obviously thought they’d be getting off scot free. The adults all let out a chuckle before they disappeared into the main building, the firebender turning to her teammates, who were walking towards the buildings Tenzin pointed out earlier. Asha and Hayate were already engaging in some kind of conversation with the airbenders, something the firebender rolled her eyes at. _At least they’re making friends._

“Rai! Hold up a second.”

The firebender turned at the sound of the voice, raising an eyebrow as the Avatar jogged over to were she was standing, a stack of papers under her arms. “Hey. Lin had one of the lower level officers make copies of everything, so. Also, she called me this morning, said they’re heading over to the address you gave them tonight. She’s supposed to call again later with more details about what they find. Hopefully they haven’t moved any of those kids yet.”

Rai nodded, glancing between the letters, the death certificate that the Avatar was holding out to her to the Avatar herself. “So do I. Has Asami seen these yet?”

Korra nodded, thinking back to the hour she sat with her wife at the police station reading over the various letters and papers the young firebender had supplied them with. She also couldn’t help but think about how devastated the CEO had been. The tears that she’d shed lasted from the moment she read the first paper until they left, only to lock herself up at Future Industries claiming she had work to do. “Yeah. I told her about this dinner Pema and Tenzin are throwing tonight. To welcome you all to the city and the island. Hopefully, she’ll show up. I’m sorry you two haven’t had a chance to meet yet.”

The firebender shrugged, flicking her wrist out towards the papers. “I wasn’t expecting a miracle, Korra. You can keep those. They’re of no importance to me anymore.”

Korra raised an eyebrow, pulling the papers back to her. “You weren’t expecting a miracle? What does that mean?”

The Avatar watched with a heavy heart as the sixteen-year-old’s jade eyes, that matched a pair she’d become so familiar with, finally met hers. They were hard, showing no sign of emotion. Something the eyes of a child should never do, in her opinion. “Look at me. I was always meant for this life. I’m used to being alone, and I’m used to that feeling it brings along with it. Don’t worry about me, okay? Even if the accident hadn’t have happened, I would have most likely ended up here anyway. Alone.”

“You’re not alone, Rai. You have friends.”

“Teammates. They were paired with me and forced to do whatever I told them to. That’s not exactly a friendship, is it?”

The Avatar was suddenly at a loss for words, trying not to break eye contact with the younger girl as she racked her brain for something to respond with. What exactly had these kids gone through at the hands of these Reformists? Or before they joined them? Lin had been able to come up with little information about any the four teenagers. Hayate and Asha both had parents who had been killed during Kuvira’s invasion of the city. Kayo had been taken from an abusive father following the death of her mother. But Rai was a huge question mark to everyone. They’d been able to find out that she’d been registered with four different orphanages, all of which she had either been transferred out of or ran away from. All files they’d pulled from each orphanage had said the same thing. “ _Runaway offender. Unapproachable, quiet and aggressive when approached with force. Refuses to speak or engage with other children or possible families. Lost cause._ ” How anyone could label a child who was clearly broken a lost cause, Korra couldn’t understand. Then again, she really didn’t understand the teenager standing before her. “Well, you’re not alone anymore. Whether you want to admit it or not, you’ve been inducted into our make-shift family. Everyone here has kind of adopted into roles. Tenzin and Pema are the parents, me and the others are the cool aunts and uncles…and that sounded really incestuous. We’re not like that, I promise. Well, actually, Mako and I dated. And he also dated Asami, but that’s all in the past. Oh! Mako and Bolin are really excited to meet you!”

The firebender’s eyebrows shot up, her hands coming out to keep the Avatar’s own arms from flailing out any further. “Who’s Mako and Bolin?”

Rai watched as the Avatar’s face lit up as she told the girl about the two brothers and their numerous adventures together. Apparently they’d dubbed themselves at “Team Avatar,” something the firebender couldn’t help but snort at, causing the Avatar to raise an eyebrow and place her hands on her hips. “What? It’s a cool name!”

“Sorry, they sound like great guys. I understand how important it is to have people you trust watching your back.”

The Avatar followed the girl’s gaze as it wandered over the firebender’s shoulder, settling on the three other teenagers who stood out when compared to the sea of red and yellow glider suits. “They’re more than just your teammates. I know you said they were told to work with you and everything, but do you really think they would have walked out with you if they were _just_ your teammates?”

Korra watched from her spot next to the girl, gauging the many emotions that flashed across the girl’s face. Emotions that the Avatar had yet to see since their first meeting in the interrogation room the other night. “No, you’re right. They’re not just my teammates. They’re my family. Just like your friends are to you.”

“Which is now your family as well. If you’d have us?”

The firebender glanced over at the Avatar, raising an eyebrow. “What if not everyone wants us to be a part of it?”

Korra instantly knew who the girl was referring to, and she wished, more than anything, that she could vouch for her wife. To tell the sixteen-year-old in front of her that Asami would welcome them with open arms. More specifically welcome _her_ , but she couldn’t. Doing so felt like she would be lying to the girl, and the last thing Korra wanted was to hurt this girl more than she’d been hurt already. “I can’t speak for Asami. I can’t tell you that she was overjoyed to hear that you were still alive after all these years. It’s barely sunk in yet with me to know that you are her daughter, and I don’t think she’s gotten over the surprise either. Give her some time, okay? Maybe she’ll come around eventually.”

The firebender nodded, dropping her gaze down to the walkway they were standing on. “You know, when I was younger, I would have given anything to have known something, or _anything_ about my parents. And I did give everything. I joined the Reformists because Kwan told me he could help with finding some of that information. I gave up my childhood, if you could even call it a childhood, only to be told that I truly was alone. It was easier, being told versus not knowing anything. Until I found out it was all a lie and I’ve woken up the past three mornings, with everything coming back at once and I still feel…the same. I thought I’d be happy, knowing the truth, or convincing you that telling Asami was the right thing to do. But now, I think it might have been better if I hadn’t told anyone at all. I wouldn’t have uprooted anyone’s life. She wouldn’t hate me, and I wouldn’t have put any of you in the danger that I have put you all in.”

“She doesn’t hate you, Rai.”

Rai shrugged, bending down to pick up the bag at her feet before slinging it over her shoulder. “Maybe she should. Thanks for everything, Korra. I hope we don’t let you down.”

The Avatar watched as the young girl started off in the direction of the dorms, shaking her head before she called out after the girl. “Rai?”

The sixteen-year-old halted, turning to look over her shoulder at the Avatar. Korra shrugged, letting out a sigh. “If it’s any consolation, I think I’m more worried about letting you all down. Don’t give up completely just yet, okay?”

Rai nodded before her face scrunched up. “Does this make you my step-mother?”

Korra rolled her eyes, sending a small gust of wind towards the firebender, smiling as the sound of genuine laughter came from the girl as her hair whipped around her from the sudden wind. “Go get settled in.”

Without another word, and with a simple, small smile on her face, the firebender took off into the girl’s dormitory, walking down the long hall and passed by rooms filled with the chatter and giggles of girls. Eventually she caught up with Kayo and Asha, who were being separated into rooms on opposite sides of the hall. One of the airbender caught sight of Rai, waving her in towards them with a smile on her face.

“Hi! You must be Rai. It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Opal.”

The firebender took the outstretched hand, nodding once. “Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, too. Oh and thanks for showing us around. I’m sure you guys have more important things to do or something.”

The airbender, Opal, waved her off, ushering her hand out towards the room next to Kayo’s. “Don’t worry about it. When I was first brought here, the other airbenders and Korra were really nice. I figured I’d return the favor someday, somehow.”

Rai stepped into the room, glancing around as she placed her bag by the door. “You said your name was Opal, right? You’re Bolin’s wife?”

The airbender in question followed after the girl, nodding when the younger girl looked over at her. “Yes, I am. And you, you’re Asami’s daughter, aren’t you?”

Opal noticed the expression that flashed across the girl’s face, but it disappeared as quickly as it appeared, leaving the airbender to wonder what exactly had transpired the events that led up now. What had these pour souls been through? “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought that up. It’s just…no one would have ever guessed that Asami would have had a daughter. It was such a shock when she and Korra told us the other night.”

“No, it’s fine. You can ask whatever you want. You live here.”

“So do you. But I’ll leave you all to get settled in. Like Tenzin said, dinner is at sundown. If you all want to join us after you’re done, we’ll be down at the beach with the children.”

Rai nodded, plopping down onto the bed with a huff as Opal closed the door to the girl’s room behind her, one arm coming up to lay across her face. After a few minutes of laying there, Rai finally pulled herself up and went about attempting to situate herself in the room that she’d been appointed to. What little clothing she’d owned was folded and placed into the small dresser underneath the only window in the room, and whatever little things she’d managed to grab from the compound were placed around the room accordingly. She’s just finished setting the small fire ferret that she’d had as long as she could remember, next to the lamp on the bedside table when a knock on the door startled her.

“Asha and I are done, so we’re heading out to look around. You wanna come?”

The firebender raised an eyebrow as her former roommate awkwardly looked around the small room. “I thought you weren’t speaking to me?”

Kayo shrugged, her eyes finally settling on the younger girl leaning against the edge of the bed, her arms crossed over her chest and that same old unreadable expression on her face. “I just don’t understand why you insist that you’re always alone.”

After what seemed like an eternity of the two staring at each other, Rai pushed herself off the side of the bed, running a hand through her hair before stopping a few feet from the older girl. “I know I’m not alone. I do, I promise. I know that. But you have to understand that I am always going to be terrified of losing you. Losing everybody that I care about. I don’t intentionally push you or anyone else away. It just makes being the emotionally detached one a little easier.”

“You’re not going to lose me.”

“And you can’t make that promise.”

The older girl shrugged, taking a few steps out of the room and into the hall. “Watch me. Are you coming or not?”

* * *

“No, you can’t back out. You said you’d be here.”

On the other end of the phone, Korra could hear shuffling before her wife’s voice came through. “ _I told you I’d try, and work has me tied up. I’m sorry._ ”

“It’s not me you should be apologizing to, Asami!,” the Avatar’s cheeks blushed slightly as a few of the heads in the opposite room snapped up, forcing Korra to turn and face the wall, “The girl that I’ve met so far is broken, ‘Sami. She’s cold and distant and she’s been through so much. I understand that you’re hurting, I can’t imagine the feelings all of this has brought to the surface, but she needs you. She needs her mom. And don't you think that maybe the first step in helping you heal is to see her?”

“ _I’m not her mom, Korra._ ”

“Oh that’s bull and you know it! You’re scared, I get that, but you can’t keep avoiding her, Asami. She’s not some kind of illness that you can ignore and hope it will clear up in a few days. This is a person we’re talking about. A teenager that has nothing and I’m so incredibly disappointed in you for acting like this. What happened to the Asami Sato that I first fell in love with? The engineer who put everyone before herself? Who always did the right thing?”

“ _Korra, please. Don’t talk like that. I know she’s not something I can just cast aside, that’s not what I’m doing. But I can’t face her. I’ve spent the last sixteen years of her life thinking she was dead. I don’t know how to just move past that._ ”

“Avoiding her is not the best way to do that. Come see her. You and I both know that sitting in your office and drowning yourself in paperwork isn’t going to help anyone. I'm worried about you. And her. Please.”

Silence filled the air around the Avatar and for a second or two, the Avatar actually though that the CEO had hung up on her, until her next statement caught the other woman by surprise. “ _Let me finish up this last contract and then I’ll stop by, okay?_ ”

Punching the air, Korra viewed it as victory. At least it was getting them somewhere. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll let Tenzin and Pema know that you’ll be here later. I promise you’re not going to regret this, ‘Sami. She’s a pretty good kid.”

“ _I’ll see you soon. Love you._ ”

“I love you, too. Be safe.”

* * *

 One of the great things about Air Temple Island is exactly that. It’s an island, surrounded by water and completely cut off from the rest of Republic City. There was no constant noise of Satomobile horns, or merchants shouting out in busy markets. Usually those noises were paired with a voice that Rai could never fully shake from her mind, a small whisper that never let her forget her place in the world. Here on the Island, though, the only sounds that could be heard were the crashing of waves along the beach and laughter floating from behind the firebender, where the group of airbenders were all entertaining themselves with trying to keep a ball in the air without using their bending. It looked fun, but Rai took it upon herself to simply walk along the shore. Her hair lifted up around her from the slight breeze, the scent of salt water overtaking any other smells while the tide washed over her bare feet, her shoes having been tossed aside when she first reached the sand.

“You’re being awfully quiet. Even more so than you usually are. Are you okay?”

During the ten minute walk along the shore, despite all the overwhelming sounds and sights, the firebender had been acutely aware of her former roommate’s present by her side. “Yeah, just thinking.”

“About…?”

Rai shook her head, keeping her eyes trained along the shoreline in front of them, knowing that despite being known to show little emotion, her friend could always see what she was feeling should they make eye contact. “Nothing in particular.”

Beside her, Kayo rolled her eyes, but kept them trained on the girl walking alongside her. “Nothing wouldn’t happen to include your mother, would it?”

Kayo managed to catch the way the girl’s shoulders tensed, the older girl knowing she’d managed to hit the nail on the head. “Hey, I may not understand everything you’re feeling, but I’m always here if you need to talk, okay? You know that, right?”

The firebender nodded, managing to crack a small smile before bumping her shoulder into Kayo’s playfully. “I know. Although there’s nothing much to talk about. It’s been complete radio silence.”

“Do you blame her, though? She’s been thinking you were dead for sixteen years. That’s gotta be really hard to come to terms with.”

“I’m not saying it isn’t. If anything, she should take as much as time as she needs.”

A few moments of silence passed between the two girls, until the firebender stopped, bending down in the sand to pick up a shell that was wedged in the sand. Kayo watched as the younger girl carefully used the coming and going tide to wash off the object before eyeing it and handing it out to her. The older girl smiled as she took the shell, glancing down at the object as memories flooded her brain. “My parents used to take me to the bay all the time when I was younger. We’d spend hours at a time walking the beach trying to find these things.”

“I’ve never seen the beach before until we left the city to come here.”

Kayo raised an eyebrow, turning the shell over in her hand as she watched the firebender walk a little further out into the water. “It was never far away.”

The firebender shrugged, squinting at the reflection of the setting sun on the water. Even from here, the city could be seen, although it was nothing more than buildings that looked so much smaller than Rai knew they were. “I never had a reason to go.”

“Well we live on an island now, so you can come see it whenever you want.”

The water was barely past Rai’s ankle, and the firebender nodded in response to her friend’s comment, continuing to stare out at the city. Eventually, when the sun had begun to disappear over the horizon, the firebender could hear their names being called from the direction they came, almost like a chant.

Letting out a chuckle, Rai turned to walk back down the shore line, but stopped before she could take a step. She’d always thought her former roommate looked beautiful before, even when passed out after back-to-back missions, but standing here, with her hair lifting and falling around her shoulders and the hues of the setting sun contrasting with the grey-blue color of her eyes, the firebender was at a loss for words. Even with the still faint tint of bruise along her cheek, she was breathtaking.

“What are you staring at?”

Blinking rapidly, Rai tore her eyes away from her friend, pointing down the shore to where the group of airbenders and her team could barely be made out. “We should…go…food.”

Hearing the laughter coming from her friend, the firebender walked off, her cheeks burning with enough intensity that it wouldn’t surprise Rai if they actually were on fire. They caught up with the group momentarily, Asha and Hayate chuckling at the flustered sight of the usually stable firebender.

Together as a group they made their way up to the main building, the airbenders racing down the halls and shouting out something about seating arrangements, Asha and Hayate running along after them. Rai rolled her eyes at the pair, opting to walk with Kayo and a few of the older airbenders. When they reached the dining room, Rai managed to see Asha and Hayate standing alongside some of the younger airbenders, shoving rice in their face.

“What are you guys? Two-years-old?”

Both of them shrugged at the firebender’s words, causing her to roll her eyes again before facing Pema, who was holding out a bowl of rice to the girl. Rai took it, smiling slightly. “Thank you. For everything. And I apologize for those two over there. They obviously don’t know how to use their manors.”

Pema shrugged the girl off, telling her that the two enjoying her food was enough thanks before she joined her husband at the table. Most of the adults were already seated, discussing something that had to do with their training. Rai noticed there were a few new faces she didn’t recognize from when they first arrived. Upon seeing them, the firebender automatically looked towards the Avatar for conformation.

“Oh! This is Mako and Bolin.” Korra pointed towards the two men sitting side-by-side on the opposite end of the table. The firebender nodded politely, not bothering to wait for a response before joining the other children and her teammates against the wall.

Dinner was quiet, the adults making light conversation while the children continued with the conversation they were having outside, laughter often interrupting one of them. Rai attempted to follow along with whatever Kayo was speaking to her about, but the firebender’s attention was resting solely on the Avatar. Korra seemed to be the quietest out of all the adults, her responses short and often one-worded while she glanced back and fourth between her food and the door to the dining room.

“Hey, are you even listening to me?”

Rai pulled her attention away from the Avatar, wondering what could have the woman so distracted. “Uh, yeah. I was, I’m sorry. I just got distracted.”

“What has you so distracted?”

The firebender shook her head, staring down into her bowl of rice, not knowing what to say. She didn’t know why the Avatar’s behavior was distracting her, but she was beginning to get that feeling in the pit of her stomach, the one that the firebender used to direct the paths that she took. It was the same feeling she had when Kwan first introduced himself to her. She felt it again whenever she’d figured out who they’d been sent to watch at the University, when she’d found those files in Kwan’s desk, and when she’d told the Avatar and Chief Beifong about the Reformists. Rai couldn’t pinpoint if it was a good or bad thing, it seemed to alert to both kinds of those situations, but she could tell that something was going on. Something that had to do with her, and no one, mainly the Avatar, had informed her about it.

For once, Rai had wished the feeling and herself could be wrong for once. But tonight was not that night, because the sound of a fog horn indicating the arrival of a boat at the dock had the Avatar practically jumping from her seat at the table with a small gust of air to help before she was out the door, leaving everyone sitting in the dining room confused and wondering what was going on.

“Uh, were we expecting someone or something?”

All the adults glanced between themselves, wondering if Korra had mentioned anything to any of them. Pema was the only one to speak up, standing from her spot next to her husband. “Korra informed me earlier that Asami would be joining us at some point. That must be her.”

Feeling all of the blood in her face leave, Rai’s eyes automatically glanced over at the door where the Avatar had disappeared, her heartbeat quickening. _Korra didn’t mention this earlier!_

Suddenly, the panic subsided when the firebender felt a hand place itself over the one that was gripping the leg of her pants, forcing her fingers to release the fabric before they intertwined themselves with hers. She didn’t need to look to know that it was Kayo’s hand. She’d held it enough times to identify that kind of calming sense that always washed over her whenever the two’s skin touched.

“Did you not know she was coming?”

Shaking her head, the firebender tried to find anything else interesting to look at, opting to just stare at the rice in her bowl. As calming as the other girl’s presence and hand were, it didn’t stop the inner voice inside of Rai. It was screaming _run_ over and over, and she was tempted to listen to it. If she ran, she could prolong this for a little while longer, but she was no coward. So she sat, tense and attempting to school her features in the few minutes that the Avatar was missing.

The muffled sound of voices entering in the main building brought the whispering conversations taking place around the table to a halt. Rai hadn’t even noticed that they’d began until they could no longer be heard, and knowing that they’d been whispering about what was fixing to happen forced a deep blush to the firebender’s cheeks. Stabbing at the rice in the bowl with her utensils, Rai forced herself to keep her eyes cast down as the sound of footsteps drew nearer, paired with the sound of Korra’s laugh ringing in her ears.

Eventually, the muffled voices stopped completely, and then Korra’s voice sliced through the silence that followed in that brief moment. “Hey, guys. Look who’s here.”

Every head in the room snapped towards the Avatar, most of the familiar faces smiling or simply waving. Those who weren’t so familiar kept quiet, save for Rai, who was still refusing to look up from her bowl. Not that it surprised Korra. It seemed to be in the girl’s nature to shy away from anything that would put her in the spotlight. Maybe their first meeting shouldn’t have been this public.

“Uh, I guess we should all…introduce…each other. Who wants to go first?”

From next to the firebender, Kayo rolled her eyes. Who would have thought the Avatar wasn’t good with speaking on behalf of other people? Standing up, the older girl smiled politely, reaching her hand out to the woman standing next to Korra. Looking at her as a person, versus a picture in the news-clippings she’d seen, it was painfully obvious that her favorite firebender shared some of the same genes as the CEO did. Their only differences were their hair colors, and even that was the same shade of black save for the few white streaks in Rai’s. It was like looking at an older, more mature version of her best friend. “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Sato. My name is Kayo. Korra has spoke very highly of you since we met the other night.”

The CEO smiled, quickly shaking the girl’s hand. She could feel the calming presence of Korra’s hand on her lower back, rooting her to the spot. She had told Korra she’d be here, that she’d try. This was her trying, right? “I’m sure she has. And please, call me Asami. Mrs. Sato is too informal and reminds me of my secretary back at Future Industries.”

Kayo glanced behind her, motioning to the other two members of their team who were shoveling their food in their face, acting as if this wasn’t one of the most awkward conversations they’ve observed. “Those two are Hayate and Asha. You’ll have to forgive them, they haven’t _matured_ yet.”

Looking around the room, the CEO took in all the other adults, who were watching the introductions with curious faces, nothing that only the children seemed to still be eating. “No, it’s fine, really. I’m late, I know, but please don’t halt dinner on my behalf.”

Once everyone had resumed their meals, and some of their conversations, the CEO turned back around, smiling at the young girl that was obviously trying to reduce the tension that had built up when her and Korra had arrived. The young girl smiled back, glancing back over her shoulder. Following the girl’s gaze, the CEO’s eyes landed on the form sitting silently against the wall, fumbling with whatever was in her hands and refusing to look up.

“Rai.”

The sitting form suddenly tensed, her hands stalling in their uniform movements. Slowly, but surely, the firebender glanced up, meeting the gaze of her best friend. Silently, the older girl raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms over her chest. Letting out a sigh, the firebender stood, smoothing out nonexistent wrinkles in the fabric of her pants to give her shaky hands something to do instead of simply hanging by her sides.

After gathering enough courage, the firebender forced herself to look up, her eyes automatically meeting a pair that felt unfamiliar, but familiar all at the same time. Much like Kayo, she’d seen pictures of the CEO in the papers, and caught a glimpse of her here and there while staking out the University, but they hadn’t given the woman justice. There were rumors of the CEO’s beauty and brains, and the firebender couldn’t help but find it funny that the first thought upon meeting her mother was _at least my genes are good_.

Feeling a nudge, Rai blinked away the ramble of thoughts in her brain, shooting Kayo a glare as she glanced sideways at her. What was with everyone and pushing her out of her comfort zone? She’d been forced into this meeting without knowing about it, and the least she could was try and maintain some kind of power. She’d say something when she wanted to.

“Now that I’m getting a good look at the two of you, it’s obvious you didn’t inherit Asami’s height. Her looks, yes, you two could pass as twins, but you’re kinda short, kid.”

The firebender rolled her eyes at the Avatar’s words. She was obviously trying to fill the silence with some kind of conversation. On her part, Rai couldn’t think of the right thing to say. Saying ‘hello’ seemed too passive, as if this whole situation wasn’t taking place and mother and child weren’t reuniting after sixteen years of thinking neither existed anymore. Rai couldn’t speak on her mother’s behalf, but the older woman seemed to be at a loss for words as well. Her expression was neutral, but Rai could see the pain and some other kind of emotion the girl couldn’t pinpoint swirling in her eyes. Now at least she understood what Kayo said when her eyes gave way to her feelings.

Another nudge to her shoulder had Rai sighing, shaking her head. “I was sick…when I was younger. That’s why I’m so small.”

Silence followed the firebender’s words, only to be interrupted by the sound of someone clapping their hands, forcing all four women to jump slightly and turn their heads towards the source. Tenzin was standing at the head of the table, wearing a forced smile and Rai suddenly remembered that her first meeting with her mother had an audience. All the other adults seemed to be wearing awkward looks of their own. “I apologize for cutting this reunion short, but I do believe that everyone is feeling a little emotionally run-down following the past few days events. Perhaps it would be best if we finished dinner and turned in for the night?”

Korra nodded her head, grabbing her wife’s shoulders before smiling at the two teenagers, thankful that someone had finally broken the tension that had been building. “Tenzin’s right. We are going to eat and you all should get some rest. You’ve got an early morning tomorrow.”

Feeling her friend pull her backwards, the firebender let out a relieved sigh, letting herself be dragged away from the two women as the rest of the children scampered out of the room. Apparently she wasn’t the only one wishing this awkward moment was over. She gave one slight wave, frowning when she turned around, silently cursing herself for doing something so stupid such as _waving_.

When they’d made it out of the dining room, Rai felt an arm wrap around her shoulders as she let out a groan, rubbing at her face with her hands, trying to be mindful of the bruised cheek and split lip she was still sporting. “What the hell just happened?”

From beside her, Rai heard her friend chuckle lightly, the hand gripping her shoulder moving to rub and down her arm in a soothing motion. “You just met your mother.”

“I didn’t even say hello. I waved. I _waved_ , Kayo.”

“I know. Are you okay?”

Shrugging, the firebender slowed her pace, waiting until she could no longer see or hear her fellow team mates and the other children, allowing her to be able to talk freely to her best friend without the fear of embarrassment. “I don’t know. I guess I’m glad that we finally met. It kind of takes the pressure of it off, but I’m not sure that went very well.”

The older girl nodded, looking out past the edge of the island at the barely visible waves crashing against the dock. “You’ll have plenty more times to act stupid in front of her. Now come on, we’ve gotta report to Korra at sunrise.”

Rai let out another groan, remember the Avatar’s words from earlier. Her pride and self-esteem had already taken a beating from this meeting, and she had a feeling that tomorrow was going to be even more tasking that the past few days combined.

 


End file.
